Debates!

I know I have been silent here for a while, which I apologize for. The stuff that is dominating my attention these days is not really stuff that I want to blog about, which leaves me with little to write about.

I can, however, cover the debate, right?! If the first debate was a resounding win for Romney, this one was a narrower win for Obama. He was much more engaged, much sharper and seemed like he was much more prepared. That shouldn't be a surprise, as he was pretty routinely beaten up after the first debate, which you would imagine would encourage him to take this one more seriously.

But, what I really want to talk about is moderator etiquette, because I feel like Candy Crowley was a complete disaster last night, and she committed a mistake that has huge ramifications. The moment in question was, by many accounts, the single biggest point of the night for Obama...Romney accused him of staying silent on the Benghazi attacks for two weeks, and Obama claimed that he called it an act of terrorism the very next day.

The truth is that Obama's rose garden speech depicted the attack as an extension of the outcry over a movie that Muslims find offensive. He did eventually refer to "acts of terror" but he never explicitly called this attack a terrorist action.

Side note: I find this to be incredibly unimportant, and the whole argument to be stupidly semantic. It also had nothing to do with the question they were both allegedly answering. But that isn't my point.

Crowley corrected Romney, saying that Obama had called it a terrorist action in his remarks the next day in the Rose Garden. I have two problems with this. First, a moderator should never correct a fact if that "fact" is open to some interpretation.  I would tend to give Obama the benefit of the doubt on whether or not he intended to label this explicitly...but there is clearly some room for argument. If a moderator is going to tell a candidate that he is absolutely, positively wrong, then he better be absolutely, positively wrong...not "mostly wrong".

My second problem is that this was a debate with back and forth, and Obama had plenty of time and opportunity to make that correction himself. It's his role to engage with Romney over facts and interpretations of events...not Crowley's. In fact, Romney was trying to direct that question directly to Obama, and she intervened on Obama's behalf. She is there to ask questions, keep them on schedule and follow the rules, not to insert herself into the debate. At least not in a "Town Hall"...if this were the two of them in a Meet The Press style interview, it would have been much more appropriate, but not here.

Until that point, I thought the debate was pretty even. That was a huge point for Obama, and he proceeded to really own that whole segment (a segment that probably should have been a liability for him...it was his best work and Romney's worst all night). That segment, to me, was the only part of the night that was clearly dominated by one candidate...and the moderator played too large a role in that.

On another subject, the unwillingness of each of them to answer the questions they are asked is really maddening. This is where we really miss Tim Russert...

Election Recap

Sorry to not post yesterday...it had nothing to do with a post-election hangover, and everything to do with the boys at work convincing me to play hooky and go golfing with them:-) How could we not? It was like 70 degrees outside! It's November! We are morally obligated to take advantage of that.

I learned a valuable lesson about golfing in the Fall, though...you lose the ball under leaves a lot! That was kind of super annoying:-)

OK...election. Very few surprises, really...things pretty much followed the final polls pretty closely. A pretty resounding win for Obama, obviously. I do, however, have some issues with the analysis of the event. Namely:

1) Obama went to great lengths to not be "The Black Candidate". He did an enormous amount of work and was hugely successful in being and standing for so much more than that. So, I was a little disappointed when, right when they called the race, the talking heads all of a sudden reverted exclusively to talking about his race. I don't want to say that it was insulting to him, but I really feel like it sort of belittles what he has accomplished. He deserved a more robust reading of what he had just accomplished.

2) I heard at least three different people refer to Obama as a "transformational figure." How absurd is that? Don't you kind of have to be President first before you can transform anything? Can we maybe let him actually govern first? George Washington was a transformational figure. So were both Roosevelts, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. Heck, I would buy Andrew Jackson as a transformational figure. And Obama very well could be...but let's actually let him transform something first.

3) Can we please ignore this nonsense about whether the country is right-of-center or left-of-center or whether this is an acceptance of Obama's ideals and yada yada yada. This election was about exactly one issue: George Bush. Obama won because McCain was more identified with Bush than he was, and Bush is wildly unpopular. Everything else was basically a rounding error in the polls. When we try and take lessons from this election (as we always do) it is foolish to look much beyond that.

4) I sincerely hope that the worldwide love for Obama is not based on a feeling that he will consider the interests of other nations ahead of our own. Or, if it is, I hope that they are wrong. I am all for open communication, and for articulating and promoting our ideals. In fact, that could well be Bush's greatest failing: an inability (or unwillingness) to properly articulate why his actions were in our interest, why they are in others' interests and why we have to do things that others disagree with. But make no mistake...the President of the United States of America should be concerned with serving no constituency other than the citizens of the United States of America. I trust Obama to effectively articulate whatever message he is trying to get across...I simply hope that the message is appropriate.

So, there are my flash thoughts for the day. I didn't vote for him, but I am not really unhappy with his election. I am sure he will make mountains of mistakes...they all do...and will almost certainly struggle to meet the absurd expectations that every President starts with. But I know he is smart, and I trust him to work hard, and that seems like as good as start as any.

And honestly, he has to be cool... he is from Chicago after all;-)

Wrapping up the Convention

Very interesting speech from McCain last night. He was OK (like I said, he is just not a great speaker, but he did fine) but the content of the speech was really interesting.

First, what I thought was missing: policy details. The speech dealt mainly with broad themes and big ideas. There is actually nothing wrong with this, since legislation does not get made during a nomination acceptance;-). Obama gave a much more granular speech last week (which he probably did because he gets criticized for not doing it), but I am not real sure what that accomplishes, either. All in all, I think the level of policy detail was probably appropriate for both of them... as a little more of a known quantity, we need less of that from McCain.

I thought, much like Palin the night before, that he started slow. He did a pretty good job of handling Bush...he noted his leadership through 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which the two of them are basically on the same page with) but never gave the Democrats a really concrete sound byte linking them together. He never even mentioned him by name!

While the previous couple of nights had been devoted to the base...real hearty attacks on Obama and a reiteration of Republican principles...McCain was much more magnanimous and moderate ("I wouldn't be an American worthy of the name if I didn't honor Sen. Obama and his supporters for their achievement.") He was shooting at the middle as much as the right.

The most interesting part was that he totally and completely threw his own party under the bus. Well, not just his party, but basically The President and everyone in Congress. Which, by the way, they totally deserve! It is not really out of character for him to do it, and he did it concerning a subject (wasteful spending) that is one of his trademarks, and which, incidentally, he is completely right about;-).

Still, to see a major party candidate take his own party to task right along with the other guys like that...well, THAT is an upset. Especially after they took three days to really feed the base.

The biggest problem with the speech? Well...it is McCain himself, who just doesn't have the presence that some other's do. Like...the closing section...just read this and imagine that Obama is speaking it...

"Fight for what's right for our country. Fight for the ideals and character of a free people. Fight for our children's future. Fight for justice and opportunity for all. Stand up to defend our country from its enemies. Stand up for each other, for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America. Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We're Americans, and we never give up.
We never quit.

We never hide from history. We make history."

It comes across a little differently, doesn't it? That is one of his challenges going forward.

So, let's see...what did I like. I loved "Education is the civil rights issue of the 21st century." I liked his telling of his POW experience...which surprised me. It is a story that has been told so many times that it almost loses its effectiveness, although he managed to tell it from a different angle this time, which I thought worked. And I think he scored some points on energy, taking a broader view of traditional production and renewable research and development than Obama does.

Final analysis? The more I think about it, the more I think he dropped the ball a bit. He talked about changing the ways of Washington, but other than cutting wasteful spending, he didn't really go into what that meant (not that cutting wasteful spending is not a good idea...) But mostly, I think he tried to speak to the middle at the expense of his base, while last week I think Obama managed to speak to the middle and his base.

Before the conventions, Obama was up in the polls by 1-3 points. He got a bump to something closer to 7-9 points, and McCain will now get his bump and cut into that. My intuition says it will go back to the high end of that original range. So, by the middle-end of next week, I am saying Obama by about 3 points...just a hunch.

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In much less national news, I am getting a new roommate this weekend;-) I am pretty excited about that! More on this tomorrow or Monday when I have time:-)

Paul Ryan

So, the big non-Olympic news of the last week is that Mitt Romney has chosen his running mate: Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Ryan is young, bright, articulate and handsome, and is widely known as the architect of the House Republicans budget plan. He was chosen over a number of other candidates, and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida seemed to be the most likely alternative.

For some background, Romney seems to have been sliding in the polls a bit lately. A month ago, the race looked to be tied, and now he seems to be behind by 4-8 points. Given the consistently atrocious economic news from here and from abroad, he should have been able to at least hold steady during that time, and probably should have been making some gains. His slipping is a pretty clear sign that whatever message they were delivering all summer was not working.

As a side note, the campaigns and the pundits are reading WAY too much into those polls. There is no way on earth that the race was ever really tied, and it defies all logic that Obama magically pulled ahead by a huge margin during a time period when all of the news was bad for him and no one really pays much attention anyway. Just plain common sense should tell you that Obama has probably been ahead by 2-4 points the whole time. But, I suppose they have to do something for the summer, and overreacting is their only choice...

But I think this guided Romney's VP pick. Generally, a candidate can go a number of different directions with their VP selection. They can try to pick someone who is similar to them in order to re-enforce an image (like Clinton did with Gore in 1992). Or, they can try and pick someone who is viewed as strong in an area that the candidate is weak (like Obama did with Biden in 2008). Often there are those who think a VP can help turn a swing state, although there isn't much evidence that this actually works. Sometimes, a campaign is just lost, so they pick the craziest VP they can in hopes of shaking up the race (which is how we all met Sarah Palin).

I think Romney has gone a different way...he has picked someone who is heavily associated with an issue in hopes of driving the debate towards that issue. He is appeasing his base, and Wisconsin is maybe (in a very broad definition) a contested state, but I really feel like the primary purpose was drawing Obama into a discussion about the budget.

In that sense, I love the selection. Not that I necessarily love Ryan or think his budget proposal is much better than Obama's, but to me this should be the issue, and it constantly baffles me that young people so blatantly ignore it. I certainly understand why none of the other candidates appeal to people under 35 or so, but it consistently puzzles me how Obama can remain so incredibly popular after basically telling us to go and fuck ourselves for four years.

I can promise you that the budget discussion will be ill-informed, misleading and full of half-truths and blatant lies...but I am all for anything that ensures that we at least have the discussion. Just as a heads up, Obama is going to tell you that we can solve all of our problem by "asking the very richest Americans to pay their fair share." Which is only mostly a lie because he doesn't define what is "their fair share" is...otherwise it would be totally a lie. Ryan (and by extension Romney) is going to tell you that we can solve our problems by cutting taxes further and making some minor tweaks to Medicare and Social Security that won't really require anyone to sacrifice. I probably don't really need to explain the idiocy of that.

One thing is for sure, none of them are going to actually tell us the truth: the fiscal management of the Federal budget has been so bad that we can not even stop the accumulation of new debt without substantial new tax revenues and substantial spending cuts. And not just taxes on "the top 1%", and not just cuts in "wasteful government programs". No, everyone is paying more, and everything is getting cut.

But I will take a bad debate over no debate for now, and for that reason, I am glad that Ryan will be in the race. His proposals have all kinds of flaws, and all kinds of absurd assumptions...but he is at least willing to put his ideas on paper and talk about that. Just being willing to move the discussion forward makes him better than most.

So, short version...I like Ryan, but I don't really love him and I have a LOT of issues with his grand plan. I suppose it shows well on Romney that he is willing to pick someone how may upstage him at times. But mostly, I think he will be a welcome addition to the race, and that we will all be better off for having talked about the things that he is going to make them all talk about.

What the Veep is Going On Here!

Here are my thoughts on Joe Biden:

Pretty good choice, and I certainly can't think of a better one (I don't think Hillary Clinton would have been a good choice at all.) Biden is tough, well-respected, experienced and pretty universally liked within the party. He is also strongest in the areas that Obama is weakest (in other words...he has a lot more of a resume;-)).

I think it carries several risks, though. First, as has been noted a lot this weekend, it highlights Obama's weaknesses. If you pick someone who brings something you are lacking, it just lets everyone know that you think you are lacking it.

Second, it reverses course on Obama's constant calls to change Washington and to change the culture of government. Biden is the exact opposite of change...he has been in the Senate for 36 years and all of his "plusses" involve that experience and his understanding of how things work.

Third is Biden himself. He could work really well in the attack dog role that some people like a campaigning VP to play, but he has also unleashed that on Obama already. Remember when he called him "clean"? Or when he called him a "Johnny come lately copycat" on Afghanistan? Or when he said he wasn't ready to be President and that it wasn't a job that lent itself to on-the-job training? Obviously, he is going to now claim that he knows Obama better and that a lot has changed, which may be enough...I am not sure what will resonate and what won't.

And then there are his laudatory comments about McCain. This is a McCain ad, so take it for what it is worth...but it could be very damning. If Biden is on record saying that he would have accepted the VP role with McCain, and he did accept it from Obama, well doesn't he just look like an opportunist who was willing to run with the first guy that asked him? I find that a little harder to explain, maybe.

That said, it is a decent choice. Biden is a good guy that knows his way around and brings some (possibly) needed experience to the campaign. Given his short list, I am not sure Obama could have done better.

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In keeping with my reputation of working less than anyone you know:-P, I am still at the beach with the girls until Tuesday evening at least. Looks like Tinkerbelle may be staying right up through next weekend (unless she gets really homesick this week), and this is a MUCH better place for the two of them than back in the city. Here I can open the back door and they can entertain themselves all day without a whole lot of oversight, which is a good way to watch children;-).

I actually have a project to do that lends itself very well to this. One of the VP's is writing an article from something and needs a whole bunch of research done before he can start...so I can sit here on the couch by myself and get all of that done without any distractions...so that is good. Of course, it means that I have to actually get to work...

That "O"? It is the giant hole in the Federal Budget

OK...I wanna talk politics today. I threatened to do this several weeks ago, but never got around to it. And since I have little that I feel comfortable writing about today, you get my thoughts on what has happened since the election.

First of all...quick note, but I am pretty sure that the President violated some securities laws yesterday with his "Stocks are a great investment" speech. There are all sorts of rules about who can say things like that, and who you can say them to and how. Needless to say...unlicensed, unregistered advisers are generally not allowed to make blanket investment recommendations. Actually, no one is allowed to make that kind of recommendation...

Anyway...the "stimulus package". As you likely recall, I was sort of on the fence about Obama at election time. I voted for the other guy, but didn't feel real strongly about one over the other. By inauguration day, I was pretty excited for the new voice, the new ideas, and the new people...it was pretty hard to avoid all of the warm and fuzzy feelings floating around.

But it didn't take very long to remind me that, while I very much like Obama, I just don't like his policy ideas very much. And boy, is this one a doozy!!!

Let's recap: in addition to the $350 billion that George Bush had authorized but not spent yet, Obama had Congress approve an additional $787 billion stimulus, plus a growing number of other outlays that are growing towards another trillion dollars or so (his mortgage plan comes out today with more money in it). In total, by the time he is done, he will have spent about $2 trillion in "stimulus" money.

That is $2 trillion that we don't have, by the way...

My problems with this:
1) It won't work. The whole thing seems to be based on The New Deal, which was a wonderful means of restoring faith in government, and worked very well as a long-term investment in infrastructure, but was a complete failure as an economic "stimulus". Is Obama's next plan going to be war with Germany? Because that worked really well. Anyway, since he has established no means of measuring success or progress, we wouldn't know anyway.

2) It will actually make things worse. Obama is right about what got us into this problem: living above our means at the personal, business, municipal, state and federal level for way too long. So, his solution is to do the same thing for a while longer. He is simply shifting the burden from lower levels up to the federal level...but guess what? We have to pay for that, too!!! If you pay down one credit card by transferring the balance to another, you haven't improved your overall financial position!

3) Building on #2, it will slow the recovery. We have now established the precedent that bad companies and bad industries can line up at the government trough to get survival money. What does that accomplish? It perpetuates bad companies and bad industries. I understand that we need to save the banking industry to prevent complete societal meltdown. But that doesn't mean that we need to save management at Citibank and Bank of America. It doesn't even mean that we need to save those institutions...and it certainly doesn't mean that we need to save their shareholders! Why do Citi and B of A (among others) still have any shareholders equity? Since the government now holds all the risk and all of the responsibility for additional capital, why don't they own the whole thing? Or at least the market value of what they have put in.

And the auto industry...is there anyone...ANYONE...who sees any hope of saving the three US automakers in anything close to their current state? And further, why should we? Whether or not those three companies exist next year will have no bearing on the number of cars manufactured in America, sold in America or driven in America. They will just be made in Mississippi and Tennessee instead of Michigan.

4) Inflation...yay! You can not add $2 trillion dollars to the money supply and expect the currency to remain stable. In other words...take out 30 year mortgages while the money is still cheap; in four years when inflation is 7-10% annually, you will thank yourself.

5) Deficits. Obama is now projecting that, at no point during his first four years in office, will the deficit be as small as it was in any year of George Bush's administration. I think that W has a really good claim as the most fiscally irresponsible President that we have ever had, and Obama has basically announced that he plans to shatter that record. And, just for the record, you do not "inherit" a deficit...you make your own budget, big guy. The Buck Stops Here.

Anyway, that is me ranting...I have more, but that is enough for today.

Election Experiment...um...Inconclusive

Ahh...the big day is here! There may be very little suspense left in the election (unless the pollsters are totally and completely wrong, which is possible, if unlikely) but it is still a great day. It is like the Super Bowl for civics geeks! I should warn you...this is gonna be a very long post, so beware (even though I cut out the parts about why I would rather we didn't encourage people to vote. Seriously, if you can't figure out why it is important on your own, then I would rather you not dilute my say.)

First, my election experiment proved...um...almost nothing. I am not sure that I initially set out to be impartial, but I was never really strongly in favor about any of the candidates, so I think that my thoughts came off pretty much down the middle. I have been leaning for some time now, but as the election neared, I made a more conscious effort to focus on objective analysis of the candidates instead of opinions.

I assumed that there would be some correlation between people's leanings and their perceptions of my leanings. Either you would assume that I was voting for the other guy because the criticism of your guy would sting too much, or you would read the criticism of the other guy as evidence that I was on your side. In the end? It made little difference. I got 23 responses...11 thought that I agreed with you and 12 thought that I disagreed. It didn't matter which candidate you liked...pretty evenly mixed on both sides. So...my grand experiment proved...um...nothing!!!

It did prove that there was little leaning apparent in my thoughts. A summary of results:

Who are you or would you vote for?
Obama 13
McCain 9
Other/Undecided 2

Who do you think I am voting for?
Obama 13
McCain 10
Other/Undecided 1

Where do you live?
Georgia (5)
California, Connecticut (3)
North Carolina, Virginia (2)

Oregon, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, New York (1)

Germany (2)

Canada, Wales (1)

So, people maybe sensed a minor leaning, but not much...and there was very little correlation between who people are voting for and who they thought I would vote for. Also, Georgians love me... I should move!

So, anyway, my experiment was kind of a letdown...I didn't get the results I was really hoping for. But...I still have to vote! And I am sure that you are all dying to know who I am going to vote for! Or, maybe not...but you are gonna hear anyway:-P

I am, through somewhat gritted teeth, going to vote for McCain. I could give you like 40 reasons why I shouldn't, and why I don't really want to...but in the final analysis, I simply agree with his view of Government more than I do Obama's. For me, this involves prioritizing issues...I agree with Obama on abortion, and guns, and on parts of his education ideas, and some other stuff as well. I agree with McCain on taxes, spending and entitlements and immigration. I think McCain is more prepared and willing to do what is in the best interests of the country abroad...I feel like Obama would be much more concerned with being liked.

I find them both to be embarrassingly wrong on energy and (especially) health care. When I tally these things up, I agree with McCain on what I consider to be the more important issues. I think it is important to note here, that I firmly believe that energy will be THE defining issue of the next 40 years. I would have voted for either of them if he had put forth a coherent, reasonable energy plan, but neither did. Obama is more specific and environmentally conscious, but McCain's is more realistically effective ("throw everything at it...we shouldn't be eliminating any options right now").

Basically, I would like the next President to address our long-term solvency. We have a massive budget deficit and national debt that is a complete pox on my generation. There are basically two ways to try and close that: raise taxes and cut spending.

Actually, there is only one way...the structure of our entitlement programs is such that we can not pay for them, no matter what we set tax rates at. We HAVE to cut benefits, and the math is simple enough for everyone to understand. Which of these two do I think is more likely to control spending? That's actually an easy one...McCain, despite some recent lapses, has been a pretty avid controller of spending throughout his entire career in the Senate. Obama has no record on this, but his entire philosophy of government says that he will continue to grow the size of government.

So, there you have it...in a nutshell, I am voting for McCain because I think he will spend less. How is that for summing up the longest, most expensive and most interesting political race in the history of the world...

By the way, I am going to vote tonight after work, so you can still try and change my mind;-)

Gotta have more Tinkerbelle!

Break out the party hats, today is Brandy's birthday! Coming on the heels of a job disappointment, I think we should all wish her extra-special birthday good wishes for a happy and enjoyable birthday. With lots of cake:-) [And a bevy of beautiful men to lick frosting off of...or, I guess just one. Or two. Two's good.]

Tinkerbelle's mom is not doing well. He back is healing slower than they anticipated and she is going to be in the hospital probably all weekend. The issue now is that they just can't stop fluid from building up near the site. It is slowing, but not enough to let her leave. She is in good spirits, though, and says that the pain is not as bad as they had warned her of, so that is good. I offered to let her stay here until she has to go back to school (a week from Tuesday), and I imagine she may take me up on that. Which would be fun!

There appears to be big news coming on the Obama front...he says he has picked his VP and will announced it maybe today. I have to be honest, the timing seems weird...who makes big announcements on Friday afternoons in the summer? Usually only people who want the news to blow over...and this should NOT be one of those situations. The VP selection is wildly overrated as a deciding factor in the fall election, but it is still news, and seems like something that should be aimed at getting more attention. (For the record, I will guess that it is Joe Biden, but I have no real reason for thinking that.)

And he could use the attention, because his campaign is in a total funk. This site...which is like my daily civics crack...has shown the race go from a seemingly one-sided affair to a virtual dead heat. It is hard to tell where the two candidates stand exactly, but it is obvious that Obama had a big lead two months ago and that lead is almost (or maybe entirely) gone.

McCain's summer strategy is sticking and Obama's is not...in fact, I saw a fascinating piece of analysis (that I can't find now) showing that Obama is actually a very weak candidate (thus far). The metric they used was polling on the question of "Which party are you more inclined to vote for this fall?" or something like that. Basically, "If you remove the individual personalities at every level of the ticket, would you pick a Democrat or a Republican?" The poll showed a national leaning towards Democrats of about 6 points...which is HUGE, and is why the Democrats are going to take an even bigger majority in both houses in November. But Obama is only 2-4 points ahead of McCain in the same national poll...which means that he is under performing against what should be the built in bias for him.

Not sure anyone else finds that as interesting as I do...but it refutes a lot of the conventional wisdom of Obama being a motivational leader and great campaigner (at least when the audience isn't registered Democrats). I dunno...seeing how much money he has raised, how much the media loves him, and how much more high-profile the Democratic primary was than the Republican...I feel like he should be much farther ahead than a couple of points. Or maybe none.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Or any hopes on who he picks as his running mate? Does it matter at all?

Oh, Bama!!!

OK, I know that much of the content was either fluff or horribly frightening, but man can that guy deliver a speech or what!? He could be reading a recipe for Bran muffins and I would sit on the couch enraptured...and his wacko followers would probably cry. [Although, Aly can tell you what happens if you put in too much baking soda...so pay attention to the recipe].

I thought that Obama was fantastic, but I didn't love the speech (does that make sense?). His actual policy talk seems to rotate between scattered (all of a sudden he wants to invade Pakistan, an ally with Nuclear weapons? Say what?) and cookie cutter (capitalism bad, big government programs good, rich bad, unions good). And I still find him sort of naive at times...any idea that Iran is going to respond to someone asking nicely is just ludicrous.

I still like that he doesn't view this as a zero sum game. My big issue with politicians of the Clinton-Bush era (and, I guess, the Biden-McCain era) is that everything is a battle and the other side can't win without you losing. I think having grown up after the culture wars of the 60's has helped Obama to see it is less of a battle. Sometimes the other guys are right, and it is OK to admit that.

So, anyway, I think his speech will provide him the poll bump that he was looking for, even if the rest of the convention failed to deliver for him. Then that bump will be eroded next week when the Republicans get done, and we should be back about where we were last week...with Obama holding maybe a very slight lead. McCain will not be nearly as dynamic next week as Obama was, but I expect that the entire convention will be more effective...Republicans seem, for better or worse, to just be better at this stuff than Democrats are.

Today we will get McCain's VP...and the hot name this morning is Sarah Palin (literally, the hot name...) I don't know a lot about her, but it seems that she is a pretty consistent conservative, and is even younger than Obama is. That would be interesting (and, combined with Obama picking Biden, would make it harder for each of them to hit the other on their most common criticisms: experience vs. outsiderness).

As for me, I am looking forward to the long weekend:-). The whole crew is coming down today...The Boy, Smoking Hot Roommate and the Rocket Scientist, The Brain Surgeon and Big Sis, Papa Bear and some other friends. Tinkerbelle is going home Sunday, and I think I am going to cry when she leaves...but that is just what I do, I cry. That's how I roll, bitches;-)

Can we have a do over?

Ok...quick debate recap...BORING!!!

I find myself liking them both less all the time. Now McCain wants to buy up mortgages and renegotiate them to keep people in their homes. Which is both impossible and stupid...a winning combination! (If any Bank holds a whole mortgage, they will gladly renegotiate that loan if the borrower can pay the new loan and will do so in good faith. The alternative is foreclosure, which is expensive and time consuming and will result in a much bigger loss. The problem comes with loans that have sliced up and resold into several pieces, and you couldn't buy that even if you tried.)

Obama still wants to cut income taxes for 95% of Americans. Which is patently impossible. These numbers are all rounded, but you will see the nonsense of this anyway...there are about 150 million workers. Therefore, only 50% of Americans earn anything upon which they could pay income tax to begin with.

Now, Obama did correct himself later on and say "95% of American workers" which is better, but still preposterous. Why? Because about 35% of American tax filers do not pay any income tax. Now...if your tax rate is 0% (or less), how exactly is that going to get cut? And what will the new rate be?

Unless he is talking about cutting social security taxes (he isn't, of course, but follow me for a second), which are a MUCH larger burden on the poor and lower-middle class. While the income tax is progressive (you pay a higher rate as your income rises), the social security tax is regressive. If you earn $80,000, you pay 6.25% of your salary, and your employer also pays 6.25% of your salary. If you make $200,000, that percentage is about 3%.

And, before you give me the "Oh, but your benefits are capped," argument, please note that the two are entirely unrelated. Don't be fooled...it all goes to the same place. Whether they call it and income tax or a social security tax, it all goes into the same pile and pays the same bills.

Anyway, I got totally off track there for a second...

I thought the most interesting part of the debate was the question about humanitarian intervention and the Doctrine of each candidate. If you get the chance, go back and watch it...I don't think either of them expected that question. Obama had to answer it first, and really seemed taken aback. His answer was, well...nothing. The question called for "We will act when..." and he didn't have much of an answer. McCain's response was a little better (and he, of course, had the 90 seconds of Obama's answer to think about his own response) but I don't think he had a really good answer for it either.

Anyway, I am prepared to make a statement today...barring a major, unforeseen incident (like, say a missile test from Iran or footage of Michelle Obama chanting "kill whitey" while drinking blood in a bizarre pagan ritual), this race is over. Obama will win, and he will do so by winning Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado and Missouri (among the more obvious ones.)

McCain has allowed himself to be tagged by the financial difficulties of the day, he hasn't distanced himself from Bush enough (should we all remember that they hate each other?) and his campaign can't get past that.

Elvis...as they like to say...has left the building.

Runway and Debate recaps

I think that maybe my excitement in seeing GLB reappear may have scared him off...if we are very quiet and look the other way, maybe he will come out of hiding again. He can totally write a guest post telling us where he has been for a year and a half now if he wants, too...consider it an open invite.

[Runway spoiler...look away if you haven't watched]

LOVED that Leanne won Runway last night. I thought her clothes were really stunning. Maybe too much of the wave thing, but I loved the subtle colors, the variety of pieces and the...um...chicness? Is that a word? I liked Korto's, too...it reminded me a lot of the stuff that Chloe did in season 2. Kenley's stuff was beautiful, but the only time she broke any new ground, it was when she clipped stuff from other people. There was no way they could pick her as the winner after chastising her repeatedly for her liberal borrowings of design ideas...

[OK...safe to look again]

Anyway...the debate...I thought it was interesting. McCain clearly knows that his days are running out, which left him in the uncomfortable position of having to really attack Obama all night. And Obama is too slick and too polished to let any of that get to him. I think that maybe the McCain folks were hoping that they could get Barry to fly off the handle a bit, but he managed to maintain his composure.

My impression in watching this was that McCain was thinking "Seriously, people...do you know who Bill Ayers really is? Why does no one care that these two are associated?" Unfortunately for him, I think he has had trouble making the association really stick. No one seems to be that phased by Obama's "casual friendship" (that is Obama's spokesman's words) with this guy, and that seems to really frustrate McCain.

So, this debate was clearly spicier than the last ones. Don't laugh, but McCain would have done better if he had not been on camera when he wasn't answering. He just looks kinda creepy and evil when he is just sitting there, blinking and smiling. He could do with looking a little more...I dunno...Presidential?

Let's see, I will say that Obama won the debate by not losing. He is very clearly ahead right now, and this was the last scheduled major event of the race, so McCain needed to make something happen. The tax discussion continued to be totally bogged down in minutiae and avoided the major issues. The health care discussion was as nonsensical and idiotic as it was last time and they made very little progress anywhere else.

I found the education section interesting. I thought McCain had a good moment on school vouchers when he cited the successes in Washington, D.C. I was surprised that Obama said something about paying teachers more in exchange for better accountability...the teacher's unions are a huge supporter of Democrats in general, and will never go for that on any scale. Ever. Also, I found it really interesting that he stopped and called on parents to improve their kids learning. The big, unmentioned truth about education is that money, teachers and resources do not make good schools...parents make good schools. It is unusual to hear a politician note that, especially a Democrat, and especially a Democrat with dark skin (because that is the politically incorrect reason for the "achievement gap" that the left talks about at length). So, while they skimmed over education quickly, I found it the most interesting part of the debate.

I think I may vote for Joe the Plumber. He really seemed to be the star of the show...if they both like him that much, then I think I need to examine him further.

I will talk about the election more as it approaches, but I am not going to tell you who I vote for until the very end. Then, I am gonna do a little bit of an experiment...so, you have that to look forward to;-)

Catching up on old news...

Welcome back from the long weekend, everyone:-) There is much to discuss since I have conveniently neglected to blog since...oh...Friday? The Boy and the rest of the crew showed up on Friday and I was pretty busy all weekend (by "busy", I mean "socializing"). Pretty big crowd in the end...the house was just about full. It will take me a couple of days to get through all of the blog materials...

First up, Sarah Palin. I have to admit to still not having a firm opinion on her.

There are things I like: I am impressed that she is almost kinda hot:-P. And she is clearly very tough and very independent...she has basically dismantled the Alaska Republican Party by rooting out all of the old crooked guys, and she seems to fit into McCain's image as "maverick." She also shut down one of the worst Federal pork barrel projects in the country, which fits right into another of McCain's causes. Her family story (even with the knocked up daughter) is tremendous, right down to her husband being a steel-working snowmobile racer.

There are things that I don't personally like, but that many people will: Socially, she is SUPER conservative. Totally non-negotiable pro-guns and pro-life.

And then there is her relative inexperience. Be careful, Democrats...THIS IS A TRAP!!! She is younger than Obama, and has very, very little foreign policy experience (I wouldn't say that she has absolutely none, though...she governs a border state.) However, she has more executive experience and a more concrete record as a reformer than Obama does. What's the upshot? That her experience level is pretty comparable to Obama's: which is to say "Not much".

Here is where that is a problem for Democrats. For all the publicity it gets, virtually no one votes for a President because of the VP. So, any criticism of Palin for being inexperienced is going to stick to Obama much more than it sticks to McCain through her.

Fabulous quote of the day goes to Chuck Schumer, senator from New York "Certainly the choice of Palin puts to rest any argument about inexperience on the Democratic team and while Palin is a fine person, her lack of experience makes the thought of her assuming the presidency troubling." So, which is it, Chuck...are we taking that argument off the table, or are we putting it right back on the table? Obama actually distanced himself from this comment in particular very quickly.

The one thing that has surprised me is the seemingly negative reaction by women. You can dislike her, but to be "offended" is patently ridiculous. And further, anyone who thinks this was intended to court disaffected Hillary Clinton voters is off of his/her rocker. No one who supported Hillary Clinton is going to vote for John McCain because he picked a vehemently Pro-Life female running mate. This move was aimed almost entirely at the base of his own party: evangelical Southern, Western and Midwestern Christians that are somewhat suspicious of McCain.

And while her gender was certainly a factor in her selection, who was the obviously better male candidate that he passed over? Tom Ridge? Mitt Romney? Tim Pawlenty? All have some attraction, but they are all far from perfect, and none speak to the party's base. Bobby Jindal? He would have taken the same exact criticism, only it would have been that McCain picked him just because he is a minority. Joe Liberman? The campaign would have been over before the convention even finished. I don't feel like he really reached on this one...she is an extraordinarily popular governor with an independent streak that appeals to his core voting block. Being a woman certainly helped, but to claim that she was picked solely for that reason is unfair to her, unfair to McCain, and unfair to women politicians.

I don't think that the teenage pregnancy is going to be an issue...she seems to have deflected that, and Troopergate isn't gonna stick, either ("Are we really taking a governor to task for wanting to fire a state trooper that tasered an 11 year old boy to get back at his ex-wife?").

She does, however, have a certain legitimacy bar to hurdle over. She has to prove that she "belongs" on this stage. Obama has no resume either, but he has passed that legitimacy hurdle by looking and sounding the part, and she needs to do the same. It will be harder for her: he has had an 18 month campaign to get used to this...she has to jump right in...but if she passes that threshold, it will be an outstanding pick. If not...Dan Quayle (although, we should note that George HW Bush won that race easily anyway.)

Along with that is the national press. She has yet to be vetted by the nationals, and that could very well turn up some things we haven't heard about. I say that Troopergate will be a non-factor...but that goes out the window if there is more to it than we know now.

So...I am taking a "wait and see". I don't particularly like her social politics, but I think I like her, and I really want to like her. What I am waiting on is to just see if she looks out of place on this stage. She will speak this week, and probably do a lot more press in the next week and a half that will answer that question for us.

Regardless...McCain has managed to spice the race up a bit, which is really about the most you can hope for from a Vice President.

Let's not put him on currency just yet

I think I am falling off of the Obama bandwagon a little bit...at least as much as I was ever really on it. I know this will break Brandy's heart, and possibly lead to an intense lobbying effort on her part, but I am liking him less and less these days.

What are the problems? Well, first, the speech plagiarism is really horrible, and it should be a MUCH bigger issue than it is. It speaks to the way the media is completely in his pocket that it has been glossed over like it has. Imagine if a lesser-loved person did the same thing…Joe Biden got KILLED for this last year, and he was never a legitimate contender to be President like Obama is.

It bothers me on a couple of levels, at least one of which is that he is stealing passages from our complete idiot of a Governor. Seriously, I don’t know a single person, including life-long, committed and loyal Democrats, who thinks that Deval Patrick is not WAAY over his head.

The content of the passage makes it worse. If you are going to discuss the power of words, I feel like the words should be your own. If you are justifying your candidacy by saying that the content and ideas are enough to make you a good President, the ideas should be your own. If you have no legislative track record, little experience, and now you don’t even have your own ideas…well, what are you bringing to the table?

Second, I am not sure he has any really groundbreaking ideas. I still believe that he is more temperamentally prepared to be a true leader instead of a partisan fighter like the last two guys…but I wonder about his depth. I don’t think he has any plan for Iraq, and frankly I don’t care if he was for or against it in 2003. How you felt then (and, he never had to actually commit that feeling to a vote, either) is really pretty irrelevant, and doesn’t change the situation today.

Expanding on that, I feel like he is kind of naïve. Seriously…he is just gonna call up Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and offer to chat, and that is gonna solved our problems? There are people that can be reasoned with, and people that can’t. Remember when Bill Clinton decided that the solution to North Korea was a dialogue? If you don’t…the North Koreans took all of the concessions given, and then began violating their half of the agreement before the meetings were even over!

I am not going to knock him on his amateurish discussion of all things economic, because he is no better or worse than the rest of them. Whole other subject.

And finally, I don’t like to beat people up for things others say or do about them…but if Hillary Clinton is going to be taken to task for Bill’s actions, then we have to recognize how horribly offensive Michelle Obama’s comments this week have been. I like her a lot, and many people do, but that was a load of crap and she should be skewered for it. Our country is far from perfect and there are a million ways we can improve it…but to say that she has never been proud of her country is, frankly, offensive to me and a lot of others.

And finally, this nugget. I don’t hold him responsible for the things that hang in every campaign office. BUT…when it came to his attention, he should have reacted. Could it be that he doesn’t know who Che Guevarra really was? I hope not, but the only alternatives are that a) he knows, and just doesn’t think he was that bad a guy, or b) is that much of a leftist that he thinks Che is super cool. None of those speak really highly of the Senator from my original home state.

So, I am down on Obama this week. I could change my mind, and Hillary Clinton’s speech last night sure hurt any chance of me changing my mind on her…but I am disappointed in Obama.

Sorry, this is kind of a long post, and a little overly serious. I will be cooler tomorrow, I promise:-)

Everyone will be happy! And skinny and attractive!

Alright, it's Friday, it is a long weekend and there is no chance at all that I am getting anything else done, so I am going to blog. I have run out of clothes to look at online, so this is the next activity...

Convention thoughts:

Oh, Clint...you poor thing...

That whole episode was just so very, very weird. You know how Republicans are fond of chastising Democrats for listening to celebrities? "Shut up and sing!" Well, you know what? THEY'RE RIGHT!!! For the love of God, leave the acting to the actors and the thinking to the thinkers. Whether you are George Clooney or Clint Eastwood, you aren't smart just because everyone you pay to hang around you says so...keep your mouths shut and we will all be better off.

I had almost identical thoughts on both Romney and Rubio: I though that they were both good, but the speeches sucked. Rubio especially was energetic and smooth and polished and had all of the stage presence that Republicans have wished that they could find since Obama took them to the woodshed in 2008. Of course, the content of the speech was vapid and woefully off-topic (he was aware that he was introducing Mitt Romney, right?) But then here the analysts go today doing exactly what they do with Obama all the time...mistaking a great delivery for a great speech. It looked and sounded great...but it doesn't read great.

Same for Romney: he was polished and comfortable and very Presidential. He just didn't say much of note. The first six or seven minutes, especially, were really terrible and some of the sentences just made no sense. He got going a little bit as it went along, but it still just wasn't a great text. In that forum, a great speech should answer three questions: 1) Why should you get rid of the other guy? 2) Why should you pick me? and 3) What will I do if you pick me?

I will give him pretty good marks on the first question, which is always the easiest to answer. I think we are all clear on what his criticisms of Obama are, and many of them are valid. The second question is one he has always struggled to answer...he seems to constantly be apologizing for who he is. He tries so hard to be "likeable" and "approachable", and it is totally not him. He would be much better off simply going with "You want a poker buddy, or do you want a Chief Executive? Because I am not gonna be your friend, but my credentials as a leader are impeccable and I will do this job better than anyone else you can find." He isn't going to be warm and fuzzy, and that shouldn't matter.

My favorite part of the analysis today, though, is all of the talk of his addressing that third question...all of the "firm policy details." Really? Do we honestly pay these people to be on television? "I will create 12 million jobs and strengthen the middle class," is not a policy detail. It is a promise and a lovely goal...but it isn't an actual idea. Which isn't to single out Romney, because Obama has been talking about "green jobs" for five years, and neither he nor any of his advisers has ever told anyone what the fuck a green job is. Really, my complaint is with the talking heads who can claim, with a straight face, that there was substance in that speech.

On to much more important matters...it's time to head to the beach!!! Last time this year, probably, but it should be a great weekend!

Back to John Edwards

Excellent comments on this...some good insight. Please feel free to chime in if you didn't get the chance yet. The questions were based on John Edward's recent admission that he cheated on his wife with a campaign staffer. Rumors abound that he fathered her child, but both (sort of) deny that so far.

I should preface all of this by saying that I never liked him. He struck me as a super-slick shyster from his first splash on the national scene four years ago, and I never felt like he had a whole lot to say. He had a message that clearly resonated on some level ("The Two Americas") but his rhetoric was rooted in too many half-truths, blatant distortions and false hope for my taste. Railing against free trade is just...I dunno...a waste of time ("Oh look...suddenly Obama loves NAFTA...who could have ever seen that coming?!?!?!")

So, to recap and add my own thoughts, by question:

1) Is this newsworthy? Virtually everyone said that it was, and I agree, but I just don't know why this was such a big story. Is anyone really surprised as a politician cheating on his wife? Especially one who had treated his wife's illness as something between a sympathy play and a blatant campaign event (and was apparently well known for talking about his deceased son during closing arguments of personal injury trials).

And further, why is he all that relevant anymore? He ran for President twice, and VP once and lost. So, at this point he is a former one-term Senator with no distinguishing record and little hope of a life in Politics. I have seen some people say that he is hurting his chances of a role in an Obama administration, but that was gonna be a nothing job anyway. Unless Obama was gonna make him Attorney General (and really, given his own lack of a resume, can you imagine Obama tabbing someone for this job that his opponents could call an "Ambulance chaser"?) there are not really any real jobs that Edwards would have been seriously considered for.

2) Is this our business? This is a tough one. When seeking elected office, it is pretty fair to debate someone's character. And infidelity (not to mention leveraging your position of power to chase some tail) is certainly relevant when judging someone's character...so I would say that yes, it is our business. He wanted us to trust him to run the country, but his own wife can't trust him to keep his hands off the hired help. But, as noted...he is not really running for office right now. Still, it was recent enough, and he would certainly purport to still be a viable political prospect that I would say it is in fact our business.

3) Is it worse because his wife is sick? Yes, I think it is. I don't feel like it minimizes other acts of infidelity to say that there are degrees of it. When you get married, you promise to be devoted to each other, especially in times of need. If he is out banging his PR director, he is not focusing all of his energies on helping his wife through what is likely the most difficult thing she will ever do. And, saying that "she was in remission," even if you are not intending it as an excuse, is just plain tacky.

4) Finally, the point of my fourth question was...do you feel differently about this because he is a slim, good-looking guy and his wife is, well, kinda chunky? I have to be honest, I hadn't thought of this, but the issue was raised and I wondered if it had an effect on how people viewed this.

So, there are my thoughts...continue to chime in as you feel the desire to.

-----

Raise your hand if you are bouncing up and down and doing happy dances because your little sister is coming to visit!!! (That's me with her hand raised:-))

She is flying in tonight and I am super, super excited to see her. This will be, by far, the most uninterrupted quality time I have had with her. Geez...I hope she likes me...lol...what if she thinks I am kind of a tool?

Anyway, I don't know how much I will be around next week. I will definitely be at the beach for the first couple of days of the week, but I will be working, so I won't be totally off the reservation. I will likely still blog a bit, too...but you will have to wait and see:-)

More Conventioning

Anyone else think that CNN is trying really hard to root for a good result for Obama? I understand that they have to have some partisans on, but I just don't feel like they are making any efforts at impartiality.

This gets to a major criticism that I have of political commentary...where is the unbiased analysis? Why does everyone have to be in someone's camp? In a sporting event, for example, there are announcers that just tell you what happens and what it means, even if they are rooting for one team or another. Even the Red Sox announcers can tell when someone is doing bad and it might hurt the team.

So, why can't you find political commentators who can just...independent of who they hope wins...say what something means? Even if you are a Democrat, you should be able to objectively tell when something is good or bad for you. Joe Scarborough, who is on MSNBC and is a VERY conservative guy, is actually pretty good at this. He is clearly a biased commentator, but he has the ability to step back and say, essentially "Sure I hate the guy, but this will help him get more votes," or "I want this guy to win, I think he is the right guy and I will vote for him, but this thing will cost him votes."

Why is that so hard? They should make an effort to get more people onto TV who understand the "sport" of politics and can make a judgement on who did the best to help their election cause, not just people who are in favor of one particular partisan agenda.

Moving on...last night's recap: I was disappointed.

After Hillary Clinton was so strong on Tuesday, I felt like Bill would tear the house down (like he did in 2004 for Kerry, when he was really outstanding). And, all of the words were right, but I just didn't feel like he was totally into it. His cadence was off, he didn't have the same energy and he just seemed a little bit off. Some of that is that he is generally a great public speaker and the bar is set high, but I didn't feel like he brought his best effort. I have seen him better.

I also felt like Biden struggled a bit. He stumbled over some words, and he misspoke a couple of times...like "And now McCain is promising $200 million in new taxes for big oil,", which I am pretty sure is the OPPOSITE of what he meant to say. And he is also the wrong guy to criticize McCain's decision making when he has a) been right alongside him on many of those decisions, and b) said three months ago that he would be honored to run as McCain's VP.

Obama's appearance at the end was well-timed, although at first I thought it was a bad idea. Showing up obscured everything else that happened, and really showed up Biden...but since I didn't think Biden was great, it sort of saved the night for them a little bit.

It will be interesting to see how the polls reflect this convention. The early ones show very little bump so far for Obama (and some actually show more progress for McCain), but he obviously has the chance to turn that around tonight. I expect that he will be fantastic...he is simply too good a public speaker not to be.

But that runs risks, too...if the bar was high for B. Clinton, it is through the roof for Obama. I think he will deliver, though.

I guess we will know soon;-)

So what will work?

Nilsa raised a legitimate beef yesterday...that I had a lot of criticism and not much in the way of solutions. Here, then, since she asked;-), is a four point plan Economic plan for President Obama.

1) Drastically reduce this most recent stimulus! I know that there is a large feeling that government should be "doing something", but sometimes the best thing to do is very little. This stimulus is really very similar to the one that Bush rolled out last spring...which didn't work in exactly the same way that this one won't. Stop trying to save bad institutions...their shareholders shouldn't be bailed out...just take over Citibank and whoever else can't function, break them up and sell them off in an orderly fashion. But don't just start splashing money all over the place in hopes that it will "prime the pump" or "jump start the economy". It won't. Obama was fond of chiding the opposition to this bill by saying "The American people want action." That is not really true...the people want results, not necessarily action.

2) Fix the financial regulatory infrastructure. Let's remember what the real problem is here...failure of financial markets. Government CAN address that. Once banks are healthy again, let's try to prevent this from happening again. The financial regulatory matrix is totally broken...there are too many regulators and too much wasted energy and not enough oversight that works. Tear it up, and rebuild it for our current environment. And while you are at it...we need to change our anti-trust ideas, too. Forget about monopolies...if a company is "too big to fail" then it is simply too big, period. Capitalism without failure is like Christianity without hell, and we need to be able to let the losers fail.

3) Fix the budget. The governments income statement is so bad it is hard to believe that it is real. Total revenues of $2-2.5 trillion, and total outlays (not even counting the stimulus) of $3.25 or so. Imagine that you make $50,000 a year. Now imagine that you spend $65,000 a year, and borrow the extra $15,000. Every single year. And there you have our Government. In the long run, the economy can not be strong if the Government's finances are that weak. And there are only two ways to do this...raise taxes or cut spending. Yes, it's painful, but there is no easy way out of this.

Here is the best part...and I really, really want one of Obama's acolytes to defend this fact (which comes from the recently proposed budget, page 114): His current plan calls for deficits of at least $500 billion every year through 2018. And, he has NO INTENTION of shrinking the structural deficit, at all. In 2014-2018, he is planning on deficits of 570, 583, 637, 636, 634 and 712 BILLION dollars. This is his "new era of responsibility"?

4) Fix entitlements. See #3 up there? Now imagine that you have promised to spend $70,000 next year, $75,000 the year after and so forth. Now you really have our Government. There is no such thing as "fiscal responsibility" with a permanent re-structuring of the inflows and outflows of Social Security and Medicare. And again...there is no magic bullet: we either have to cut benefits or raise taxes.

We have to stop thinking about "The Government" as if it is not a collection of the people. Relieving personal debt in favor of Government debt doesn't help the Country. It benefits some individuals in the short-term, but it harms all taxpayers in the long-term.

Here is the thing...there is no quick solution to this. We are, as a nation, over-leveraged (i.e., too much debt). De-leveraging is a painful process, and while you can put the pain off, you can't make it go away, and in fact can only make it worse by postponing it. My problem with Obama's plan so far is that he is proposing that we fight over-leverage with even more leverage. It doesn't really require a PhD in Economics to see why that is a bad idea...

Now, a couple of people have said "Oh, but most economists think this is a good idea." First of all, there is absolutely nothing that "most" economists agree on. Ever hear the old expression...if you put two economists in a room, you get at least three opinions? You find three people that call themselves "economists" who love this idea, and I will find ten who hate it. But none of them will be able to cite an example of this type or program having the effect that this one is aiming for.

OK, this is already too long. Short version? There is no easy solution...we are going to have to suffer some pain to get through this, and while we can shift that pain around, we can not avoid it.

If you would really like, I could tell you about how Baby Boomers have ruined capitalism, imperiled democracy and why they are a scourge on Humanity...maybe tomorrow;-)

OK...have at me.

Wondering exactly what they are watching?

More than being dissapointed in the conventions, I have become really angry at the analysis of them by the major media outlets. They are suddenly incapable of saying a bad thing about anyone, and have dutifully opined that every speech for two weeks now has been phenomenal.

Well, sorry guys, you are all wrong. The have been consistently vapid and amateur, but concluding with some phrases delivered with great energy to rile up a crowd that is there specifically to get riled up, and would be excited by the details of a Chinese food menu.

To hear the analysts tell it, Ann Romney was likeable and approachable and sympathetic and helped everyone know Mitt just a little bit better. That is complete BS...she was terrible, her speech was terrible and it was time that the party completely wasted that they could have devoted to someone who could delivered an actual message. Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan were bright and energetic and substantive, and Romney hit it out of the park.

Well, I wrote last week that they were all wrong...and the complete non-effect of the convention on the polls says that I am right and they aren't. The beauty of this being my forum is that no one can disagree with me!!! Ha ha!!!

So, last night was more of the same. Julian Castro was actually OK, and at least spent a couple of minutes on a coherent defense of Obama. But frankly, a huge portion of that speech were complete throwaway phrases that appeared in a similar form in Marco Rubio's similarly overrated speech last week. He had one great moment on healthcare when he hit the "actually, he was for it..." line. That was a winner.

 

Michelle Obama was better than Ann Romney, but frankly it was still terrible. She stumbled over her words ("and, and, and..."), used too many throw away phrases ("at the end of the day?" c'mon...this a freaking national convention!) and delivered the whole thing on the verge of a half-cry that isn't convincing anyone who wasn't already 100% committed to Obama. The text lacked focus and message, rambled all over the place, and included almost no defense of her husband's Presidency other than "he loves me and our kids!" 

Tonight we get our very own Massachusetts Senate candidate, Elizabeth Warren, who will likely be shrill and condescending and make no new friends outside of the specific segment of the party that loves her. Once again, the panels will talk about her clear vision and strong message...and the blue collar Democrats in Massachusetts that she will need to rely on to win will largely yawn and make no re-assessment of their opinion of her. 

 

My gut feeling is that this is a mistake, and largely driven by a feeling that they "owe" her because the didn't give her the Consumer Finance job she wanted. Obama is going to win this election based on likability, and she is not going to help him on that one bit. But what do I know...no one pays me to recite party talking points on the air...

Frankenstorm

The Great Not-Quite-a-Hurricane-But-Much-Worse Storm of 2012 has blown through, and thankfully it was a little bit oversold around here. There are some power outages, and the coasts suffered some serious flooding, but we were very much spared the worst of the storm. It was rainy and windy and there are a lot of limbs down, but it doesn't seem like there is much severe damage.

Very much not true south of here, as a huge swath of the country, from central Connecticut, through New York and New Jersey and all the way down into the Mid-Atlantic got walloped pretty good. New York and New Jersey seem to have really gotten the worst of it...massive flooding and dangerous levels of power outages. Roads, bridges and tunnels seem to be closed in large numbers.

We never even lost power, which is a blessing. The girls thought the whole thing was quite an adventure - day care was closed yesterday afternoon, so we hung out in our pajamas and watch Jake and the Neverland Pirates all afternoon:-). We didn't really do a whole lot of storm prep, but Munchkin and I did bake a spice cake with cream cheese frosting on Sunday so that we would have some comfort food. The cake, not surprisingly, is gone...

The next big news, of course, is the election next week. I haven't voted yet...I am a traditionalist and like to vote on election day:-). Despite some apparent tightening of the race, I still think Obama will win, and I don't think that we will be up all night waiting to find out. Romney just needs to many things to break his way to pull out a victory...he needs to win a bunch of states that will be close, but that he seems to hold small leads in right now (Florida, Nevada, Colorado and North Carolina) along with several that are basically tied (Virginia and Iowa). And even then, everything will come down to Ohio, which he appears to be losing by a small margin now and positively has to win in order to win the election. If Obama wins any of Ohio, Florida, Virginia or North Carolina, he will win...and he can lose all four and still find a way to win if everything else goes his way.

We have an interesting Senate race in Massachusetts, too. Scott Brown won the seat two years ago in a special election in one of the most remarkably astonishing elections I ever remember...a Republican simply can not win that race under any circumstances, and he somehow did. Now he faces a very stiff challenge from Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Professor and the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This one, I will admit, confuses me...most recent polls show her with a small lead, and yet I don't know anyone who likes her. And I don't know anyone who is going to vote for her except for people who always vote for every Democrat.

And it has been a funny campaign...he has consistently attacked her character, noting her phony claims of Native American heritage used to get preferential treatment in academia, along with her professional work on behalf of "big corporations" - the exact kind that she rails against so incessantly. For someone who has the likeability ratings that he does, that is a risky strategy. She, meanwhile, hasn't run against him very much at all...her message has really centered on the threat of a Republican majority in the Senate. She has run more against Republican leadership than she has against him specifically. She has taken a couple of half-hearted shots at specific positions of his, but they have been pretty weak. The real focus has been on running at the party level.  And, now that it looks like there is almost no chance of a Republican majority, I am not sure that her message remains relevant.

Obama will win Massachusetts by quite a bit, probably something like 60-40. That means that, for Brown to win, he will need at least 10-11% of voters to vote for Obama but to cross the party line to vote for him...a really interesting dynamic.  If I had to wager, I would say that she ends up winning a razor thin race, but I don't have a lot of confidence in that...it could be very close.

A week or so late...

I bet you didn't know, when you woke up on Monday, that you would get a week-long flurry of public policy and politics related posts from the girl who basically stopped blogging the week before;-). But hey, life is full of surprises, isn't it?

The State of the Union address was on Wednesday, which was much ado about nothing and sort of hit or miss. Scolding Congress: good. Scolding the Supreme Court: tacky. The energy section: good and realistically broad. The brief passage on education: good. A direct call for the repeal of Don't ask Don't tell: good and surprisingly direct. Leaving Health Care until half an hour in: bad. A call to basically pass a bill that is bad and has already been given up on by Democrats in Congress: bad.

And then there was the "fiscal discipline" passage which was, in a word, embarrassing. I wonder how he even delivered it with a straight face. His idea of making hard sacrifices is to freeze spending. Next year, after he increases it again this year. Oh, and not for national security. Or Social Security. Or Medicare and Medicaid. In other words, not for 81% OF THE BUDGET!!!

To put that in perspective: Imagine you earn $50,000 a year. But, you spend $70,000, racking up $20,000 in debt every year. Assume that you spend $20,000 on housing, $10,000 each on food, health care and clothing, and $6,700 in taxes. The other $13,300 is spent on other stuff. One day, you decide that this sort of spending is not sustainable, and you decide to impose some fiscal discipline on yourself in order to fix it. Your grand plan is that you will do absolutely nothing to address housing, food, health care, clothing or taxes, and will just let those continue to rise. In addition, you will raise your "other stuff" spending to about $15,000, but promise to freeze that portion of your spending at $15,000 for the next three years after that.

Solid plan, huh? Well, that is the grand deficit reduction plan. Whoopie!!!

Anyway...moving on...a week ago, we had a monumental election here in Massachusetts, performing the absolutely unheard of act of electing a Republican to a legislative seat. To understand just how odd that is, the state has not had a Republican Senator since 1978, and has had a Republican Representative (the state now has 9) for only a brief period in the mid-1990's. The State legislature is overwhelmingly Democratic (like 80-85%, I think). We have had some Republican governors, but little else of note.

However, Scott Brown, a state Senator, defeated Martha Coakley, the state's Attorney General, by a couple of percentage points last Tuesday, erasing what had been a 31-point deficit in the early election polls. Nationally, this seems to have been portrayed as a rebuke of the health care plan, a smack at Obama and a repudiation of the current Democratic agenda. It seems to have scared the crap out of Democrats nationally and sent them running away from the health bill as fast as they can (that is what Obama was talking about with his little reminded to the Dems that they still have big majorities in both houses).

The national analysis, however, is kind of missing the point, and overstating the lessons of the election. Surely, health care was a factor, and it gave Brown some traction and a clear message that he could consistently hit on, but it was far from the key issue. And, the idea that this was a general rebuke of Obama is way off...fully 12% of the electorate voted from Brown but still approves of Obama which would put his support somewhere near 60% around here.

The national news has also talked about this being "Ted Kennedy's Seat" which is a completely fabricated idea. I don't know a single person who cared, and didn't hear a single person mention anything about the seat's previous occupant. It is an interesting historical note, but it had not an ounce of bearing on the actual election.

There were a couple of more important factors that have gotten less play. First of all, there have been a handful of very high-profile cases of corruption and graft at the State level (this clip has some images from the the great footage of Dianne Wilkerson shoving a cash payoff into her bra) that have the electorate really irritated with the "establishment". In Massachusetts, that means Democrats, regardless of who is actually running.

Second, it is almost impossible to be a worse candidate and to run a worse campaign than she did. To begin with, she just didn't work that hard. The primaries were on December 8 and the election was on January 19. That is, by my count, 42 days...a very, very short time period. Yet she somehow felt the need to take a SIX DAY VACATION in the middle of it. Even the Boston Globe, which is essentially the PR wing of the State's Democratic Party, criticized what they called her "light campaign schedule".

She also managed to come off as incredibly arrogant, which fed into the laziness criticism. The worst offense was, in response to the Globe's criticism of her schedule (and in reference to Scott Brown's spending an entire day outside of Fenway Park working the crowd before the hockey game on New Year's) "As opposed to what, standing outside of Fenway Park in the cold and shaking hands?" Which led to her supporters and critics alike saying a big collective "Um...yes." Throw in some dumb comments about a few local institutions and a shot at Catholics, and you have a candidate who alienated a LOT of people that wanted to support her.

Her ad campaign was awful as well. She ran at least two ads that literally took straight from his talking points. (One had Ted Kennedy's wife saying "This isn't the Kennedy seat, it is the people's seat" which was a line that he used during the last debate. Another warned ominously of Brown being the 41st vote against Health care reform, which was pretty clearly a positive to many voters. Still another sneered the word "Republican" like a dozen times in 30 seconds...and came off as really funny, which is not the tone you want in an attack ad.)

In the final days of the election, her campaign went incredibly negative, including some ads whose veracity was dubious, at best. By that point, the ship was sinking and she began to look desperate. She continually tried to hit him on an anti-abortion measure that would have turned a lot of people off...if it had been a little more true. But it just stretched what we will accept as reasonable truth-bending (I am running long, but I will give you the specifics if you want).

So, in the end, Scott Brown won and it wasn't even a razor thin margin. But, while the national media will tell you that this was about Health Care and about Obama, and while the National GOP will tell you that it was all about the brilliance of Scott Brown, they are both missing the point. The national issues were certainly a small factor, and while Brown is flawed, he is hard working, really likable, very good looking and has a famous wife and a famous daughter.

But, when it really got down to it, the issue that really drove this election was Martha Coakley.