Rovian? Machiavellian? Bushist?
Politics at its worst . . . .
The goal: Make the Democrats look like the bad guys so that the Republicans could pull out a win in November and win even better in 2010.
The tactic: get the Dems to pass the bail out only to have it structured to fail.
The strategy: Set up the bill to look bi-partisan by sending it from the White House and encouraging the moderate Republicans in Congress to work with the Democrats.
The sting: leave two poison pills in the bill (no oversite and putting the Secretary of the Treasury in charge). Then leave the key Republican leadership out of the discussions so they could claim no responsibility for the bill.
The set up: with some deft trades by wealthy Republicans, encourage market swings on Wall Street so that the Dow becomes the bellwether of the backdrop which appears to show the positive and negative responses to various news about work on the bill.
Serendipity: Disrupting the first presidential nominee debate can become an excuse to change the subject of the latest news pattern. It could make it appear that the President wanted to listen to "both sides" with Sens. McCain and Obama at his photo-op table with a handful of Congressional leaders but give cover to Sen. McCain's distance from the Senate of the past two years. And if the Democrats pass the bill, it could be voted against by Sen. McCain who could claim to have tried to save the country from a legislative failure. And the disruption to the debates could mean the dropping of the vice-presidential debate or even one or more of the presidential debates.
Results: If the President's bill is passed, the Dems take the fall for its failure.
If the Dems change the bill, the Dems take the fall for being "partisan."
If it takes awhile for the bill to be shaped, the Dems are held up from campaigning which helps the Repubs who are facing defeat but would now have something to use against the Dems.
If the Dems stop work on the bill because of having insufficient time to do it right, they can then be castigated for not staying in Washington to finish the job. And McCain might gain points in a close race by running against a "do-nothing Congress." Congress does, after all, have a rating lower in the eyes of the public than President Bush!
If the market does collapse (free market Repubs would call it a "market correction" even if it was a Depression!), that would also be laid at the Dems feet.
IT'S A TRAP, BABY!
Is there a way out?
If Congressional Democrats work to prepare a bill that strengthens the credit markets based on models that have worked in the past in Sweden, Japan, and the US, and sell it to the people through Sen. Obama and Sen. Chris Dodd as well as other leadership, and don't panic (the President used some "panic" terms in his statement to the country the other night), they will do better no matter how it is framed by the Republicans.
It will help if Former President Bill Clinton is campaigning all over the country and giving the Congressional Dems a chance to finish the bill, along with ads saying where the Democratic Party Congressmen and women are (the Repubs will tend to feel, as a minority anyway, that they aren't needed in Washington so they can go campaign).
Senators Obama, Dodd, et al, CALL THE BLUFF!
Take your time and do it right.
Including doing all the debates, with or without the Repubs.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Bail Out
On my way to the Y, I saw a bumper sticker which said, "Friends do not let friends vote Republican."
On Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show Tuesday night, she reported that a Bush spokesperson said that the bail out bill the President brought out last week-end had been prepared and was sitting on his desk for a couple months. The spokesperson said they were waiting for a propitious time . . . like right before Congress would adjourn for the elections. When asked if that wasn't cutting it a little too close, the spokesperson said, "They can get it done in a few days."
That is one very good reason not to vote Republican! They pulled the same stunt to get the Congressional support for the Iraq war out of which the President not only took authority to pre-emptively strike Iraq but also trashed the Constitution with the first Patriot Act, which was also trotted out in a similar time-limited manner.
One Congressman was infuriated at the two and a half page bill from the President which gives the Secretary of the Treasury unchecked authority to spend $700 billion dollars. "That is one of the biggest power grabs I've ever seen!" he said.
Past interventions by governments to help a credit crisis in their banking system usually included an independent board with checks and balances to play that role. The acquisitions of bad assets in the most successful interventions included ownership, as we did with the AIG bail out where the taxpayers have an 80% stake in that company now. That way, if the assets ever return to value, the profits are shared with the taxpayers. Some interventions paid off with a profit for the tax payers as happened in Sweden some years ago.
The S & L crisis which involved Neil Bush and the Keating five (including Sen. McCain) was resolved with a board which was not fully supervised, resulting in an $85 million dollar loss to tax payers.
When a country goes into credit crisis as we have, people hang on to their money, if they have any. That goes for the rich as well and corporations and banks . . . .
So money is being hoarded and not let out for credit. However, because banks and financial institutions and other businesses end up in bankruptcy, someone with money can buy the valuable portions of those businesses for bargain basement prices. Bear Stearns became part of a growing J. P. Morgan financial empire that way. Merrill-Lynch was bought out by Bank of America. So there are very wealthy individual and companies that are making out like bandits accumulating assets.
This bail out lets the American people become the "white knight" that can step in and help companies survive the credit crunch and avoid bankruptcy. . . if it is structured correctly.
The President's proposal gives all the power to Secretary Paulson. Secretary Paulson was head of Goldman Sachs which has somehow stayed out of the limelight. I'm sure Sec. Paulson had opinions of his competitors on Wall Street. Is there a chance he didn't like Lehmann Brothers for some reason? That's the one corporation that didn't get help so far. When one individual has so much power, personal motives can come into play.
I can see him and his Wall Street friends having a great time if he ends up in charge of this bailout even with having to report what he's done . . . after it has happened and can hardly be reversed, as of the latest I heard about accountability in variations of the bail out bill.
I hope financial historians were at the meeting today with the President and the two nominees and Congressional members. They need to slow down the drive for sticking with the President's terms. Otherwise, it looks like the President will have brought off the biggest financial coup for his real base, the corporate barons who financed his run for the White House in 2000 and 2004.
No, my friends, I must warn you not to vote Republican!
On Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show Tuesday night, she reported that a Bush spokesperson said that the bail out bill the President brought out last week-end had been prepared and was sitting on his desk for a couple months. The spokesperson said they were waiting for a propitious time . . . like right before Congress would adjourn for the elections. When asked if that wasn't cutting it a little too close, the spokesperson said, "They can get it done in a few days."
That is one very good reason not to vote Republican! They pulled the same stunt to get the Congressional support for the Iraq war out of which the President not only took authority to pre-emptively strike Iraq but also trashed the Constitution with the first Patriot Act, which was also trotted out in a similar time-limited manner.
One Congressman was infuriated at the two and a half page bill from the President which gives the Secretary of the Treasury unchecked authority to spend $700 billion dollars. "That is one of the biggest power grabs I've ever seen!" he said.
Past interventions by governments to help a credit crisis in their banking system usually included an independent board with checks and balances to play that role. The acquisitions of bad assets in the most successful interventions included ownership, as we did with the AIG bail out where the taxpayers have an 80% stake in that company now. That way, if the assets ever return to value, the profits are shared with the taxpayers. Some interventions paid off with a profit for the tax payers as happened in Sweden some years ago.
The S & L crisis which involved Neil Bush and the Keating five (including Sen. McCain) was resolved with a board which was not fully supervised, resulting in an $85 million dollar loss to tax payers.
When a country goes into credit crisis as we have, people hang on to their money, if they have any. That goes for the rich as well and corporations and banks . . . .
So money is being hoarded and not let out for credit. However, because banks and financial institutions and other businesses end up in bankruptcy, someone with money can buy the valuable portions of those businesses for bargain basement prices. Bear Stearns became part of a growing J. P. Morgan financial empire that way. Merrill-Lynch was bought out by Bank of America. So there are very wealthy individual and companies that are making out like bandits accumulating assets.
This bail out lets the American people become the "white knight" that can step in and help companies survive the credit crunch and avoid bankruptcy. . . if it is structured correctly.
The President's proposal gives all the power to Secretary Paulson. Secretary Paulson was head of Goldman Sachs which has somehow stayed out of the limelight. I'm sure Sec. Paulson had opinions of his competitors on Wall Street. Is there a chance he didn't like Lehmann Brothers for some reason? That's the one corporation that didn't get help so far. When one individual has so much power, personal motives can come into play.
I can see him and his Wall Street friends having a great time if he ends up in charge of this bailout even with having to report what he's done . . . after it has happened and can hardly be reversed, as of the latest I heard about accountability in variations of the bail out bill.
I hope financial historians were at the meeting today with the President and the two nominees and Congressional members. They need to slow down the drive for sticking with the President's terms. Otherwise, it looks like the President will have brought off the biggest financial coup for his real base, the corporate barons who financed his run for the White House in 2000 and 2004.
No, my friends, I must warn you not to vote Republican!
Thursday, September 11, 2008
A Republican Friend
All of us have friends from the other party. With some, we avoid discussion about politics. Maybe even with most. After all, religion and politics are usually not the subjects of conversation if those friends take them seriously.
But once in awhile, a friend is willing to engage me. And he is quite good at it.
We grew up in the same Sunday school. We were in classes from seventh grade through graduation. We were in a Young Republicans Club in high school together during the McCarthy era. We took the same civics classes. Our political milieu was Wisconsin Progressivism of the Bob LaFollette variety (combining politics and university research applied for the common good).
I hadn't see this friend until our fiftieth high school reunion five years ago. He retired to a red state and I retired to whatever color Florida is!
We have exchanged materials and observations on politics for the last couple years. Recently, he sent me one that had incredible racism in it. I was absolutely flabbergasted! I responded that I couldn't believe he'd actually think that way! I wrote back and gave all kinds of historical background and anthropological information to say just how far off the mark that stuff was.
He never responded.
He and I still do some exchanging, me more than him lately. But he has given me some interesting websites to go to. More on that in a minute.
That racist article was so out of bounds that it has taken me awhile to see what he may have been doing.
You almost have to be from Wisconsin to follow my logic at this point. Maybe other parts of the country may do what we sometimes do for fun.
You may be able to tell I take my opinions pretty seriously. I also take my facts seriously. I don't really think of myself as a wonk. But as I look back at how my brother and brother-in-law could rile me, I wonder if I come across sort of dorky.
Jack and Lynn have laid out awful partisan lines. When I jumped all over them, they'd just laugh! "Gotcha!"
I think my Republican friend may have been playing "Gotcha!" with me. I know he is extremely bright (as Lynn and Jack have always been). I think he has been playing with me.
Okay, Pal, you got me!
I do expect he will vote Republican because he has offered me some real challenges, not just the wild kind.
And he has given me two websites to explore which have proven to be interesting. I have not found them to be fully truthful because they carry a number of ideas and assertions that have proved to be false.
But they also have carried stuff I haven't seen at my favorite websites. And I haven't seen that stuff corroborated or challenged on FactCheck.org or any similar sites.
The sites my Republican friend gave me are worth checking out. They are www.hotair.com/ and www.theobamafile.com/.
Both have the sense of honesty about their intentions which I find in the liberal/progressive websites that are my favorites.
But what is stunning about them is that they paint such a different picture of reality that I am persuaded they live in a different universe . . . just like their readers probably would think I am not of this world!
That's a little shaking.
If America is ever going to get back together over the partisan divide, we are going to have to find some common ground of information that we both trust.
I like to think that sites like FactCheck.org would be that kind of place.
I hope my Republican friend would too.
I'm not optimistic. After spending time on the sites my friend suggested, I am convinced he would not think of those fact-checking sites as helpful.
I hope he would not be put off by them. I hope he is willing to realize Stephen Colbert's observation about the current political atmosphere is true, that "Reality has a liberal bent."
But once in awhile, a friend is willing to engage me. And he is quite good at it.
We grew up in the same Sunday school. We were in classes from seventh grade through graduation. We were in a Young Republicans Club in high school together during the McCarthy era. We took the same civics classes. Our political milieu was Wisconsin Progressivism of the Bob LaFollette variety (combining politics and university research applied for the common good).
I hadn't see this friend until our fiftieth high school reunion five years ago. He retired to a red state and I retired to whatever color Florida is!
We have exchanged materials and observations on politics for the last couple years. Recently, he sent me one that had incredible racism in it. I was absolutely flabbergasted! I responded that I couldn't believe he'd actually think that way! I wrote back and gave all kinds of historical background and anthropological information to say just how far off the mark that stuff was.
He never responded.
He and I still do some exchanging, me more than him lately. But he has given me some interesting websites to go to. More on that in a minute.
That racist article was so out of bounds that it has taken me awhile to see what he may have been doing.
You almost have to be from Wisconsin to follow my logic at this point. Maybe other parts of the country may do what we sometimes do for fun.
You may be able to tell I take my opinions pretty seriously. I also take my facts seriously. I don't really think of myself as a wonk. But as I look back at how my brother and brother-in-law could rile me, I wonder if I come across sort of dorky.
Jack and Lynn have laid out awful partisan lines. When I jumped all over them, they'd just laugh! "Gotcha!"
I think my Republican friend may have been playing "Gotcha!" with me. I know he is extremely bright (as Lynn and Jack have always been). I think he has been playing with me.
Okay, Pal, you got me!
I do expect he will vote Republican because he has offered me some real challenges, not just the wild kind.
And he has given me two websites to explore which have proven to be interesting. I have not found them to be fully truthful because they carry a number of ideas and assertions that have proved to be false.
But they also have carried stuff I haven't seen at my favorite websites. And I haven't seen that stuff corroborated or challenged on FactCheck.org or any similar sites.
The sites my Republican friend gave me are worth checking out. They are www.hotair.com/ and www.theobamafile.com/.
Both have the sense of honesty about their intentions which I find in the liberal/progressive websites that are my favorites.
But what is stunning about them is that they paint such a different picture of reality that I am persuaded they live in a different universe . . . just like their readers probably would think I am not of this world!
That's a little shaking.
If America is ever going to get back together over the partisan divide, we are going to have to find some common ground of information that we both trust.
I like to think that sites like FactCheck.org would be that kind of place.
I hope my Republican friend would too.
I'm not optimistic. After spending time on the sites my friend suggested, I am convinced he would not think of those fact-checking sites as helpful.
I hope he would not be put off by them. I hope he is willing to realize Stephen Colbert's observation about the current political atmosphere is true, that "Reality has a liberal bent."
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Political ads
In one of the blogs I was reading today in www.crooksandliars.com, the writer bemoaned how pedestrian the Obama ads are. I have some ideas about what should be used in their stead, permission being granted by the original writers or speakers of course:
From Gov. Palin's speech - "You don't say one thing . . . and another in San Francisco . . . ." followed by former House Speaker Gail Phillips of Alaska after quoting Gov. Palin about the bridge to nowhere and a quote from her supporting that bridge from 2006, "You don't tell a group of Alaskans you support something and then go to someplace else and say you oppose it."
From The Daily Show - John Stewart's juxtaposing the acceptance speeches of George Bush from 2000 and Sen. McCain's from 2008 - almost identical wording!
From The Colbert Report - Stephen's quote about the Hindenburg from his appearence at the Correspondents' Dinner from 2006.
These are just a few possibilities. Nearly every night during Keith Olberman's, Rachel Maddow's, and Comedy Central's news and satire, there are some great lines that should get wider hearing.
He might even use some of his own lines from a speech of his today:
From Gov. Palin's speech - "You don't say one thing . . . and another in San Francisco . . . ." followed by former House Speaker Gail Phillips of Alaska after quoting Gov. Palin about the bridge to nowhere and a quote from her supporting that bridge from 2006, "You don't tell a group of Alaskans you support something and then go to someplace else and say you oppose it."
From The Daily Show - John Stewart's juxtaposing the acceptance speeches of George Bush from 2000 and Sen. McCain's from 2008 - almost identical wording!
From The Colbert Report - Stephen's quote about the Hindenburg from his appearence at the Correspondents' Dinner from 2006.
These are just a few possibilities. Nearly every night during Keith Olberman's, Rachel Maddow's, and Comedy Central's news and satire, there are some great lines that should get wider hearing.
He might even use some of his own lines from a speech of his today:
“Suddenly [McCain’s] the change agent!” Obama laughed. “He says, “I’m going to tell those lobbyists that their days of running Washington are over.” Who’s he going to tell? Is he going to tell his campaign chairman who’s one of the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington? Is he going to tell his campaign manager who was one of the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington? Is he going to tell all the folks who are running his campaign who are the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington?”
“Who is it that he’s going to tell that change is coming?” he added, “I mean come on, they must think you’re stupid!”
Friday, September 5, 2008
Oops?
There was a line in Sen. McCain's POW story as told by him at the RNC last night that caught my attention. "I was feeling terrible after one interrogation. They had broken me and I was as low as I had ever been."
He then told of how another prisoner reassured him by means of taps through the wall that he would come out of his depression and was okay.
"They had broken me," Sen. McCain said.
In the context of statements by another POW that McCain became an advocate for normalization when he returned from Vietnam, that little phrase leaves me wondering: what did McCain give up to the Vietnamese in that incident? What did he promise? What did he gain by breaking? What happened that depressed him so much as he returned to his cell?
In one sense, I do not care what actually happened because under the circumstances, I cannot say I would have done anything differently. I can imagine being tougher but no one who knows me would believe it.
But in another sense, I would really like for Sen. McCain to explain what actually happened that particular time and any other times he has not acknowledged during which he may have given in to his captors.
Why? Because then maybe we'd have a better idea what has motivated him all these years.
If I understand Sen. McCain's history correctly, he did not start out fighting corruption when he entered Congress. He was a "loyal footsoldier" for President Reagan. He did not get interested in fighting corruption until after he was caught in the middle of the Keating Five scandal. Was it just good cover to become outspoken against the very thing he had been caught doing?
Is it just good cover to play the POW card all the time for every challenge because Sen. McCain has been some kind of "Manchurian Candidate" since he returned from Vietnam?
I wish Sen. McCain would tell the story behind his being "broken." Up till now, I had the impression that he had never been. Did I miss something?
He then told of how another prisoner reassured him by means of taps through the wall that he would come out of his depression and was okay.
"They had broken me," Sen. McCain said.
In the context of statements by another POW that McCain became an advocate for normalization when he returned from Vietnam, that little phrase leaves me wondering: what did McCain give up to the Vietnamese in that incident? What did he promise? What did he gain by breaking? What happened that depressed him so much as he returned to his cell?
In one sense, I do not care what actually happened because under the circumstances, I cannot say I would have done anything differently. I can imagine being tougher but no one who knows me would believe it.
But in another sense, I would really like for Sen. McCain to explain what actually happened that particular time and any other times he has not acknowledged during which he may have given in to his captors.
Why? Because then maybe we'd have a better idea what has motivated him all these years.
If I understand Sen. McCain's history correctly, he did not start out fighting corruption when he entered Congress. He was a "loyal footsoldier" for President Reagan. He did not get interested in fighting corruption until after he was caught in the middle of the Keating Five scandal. Was it just good cover to become outspoken against the very thing he had been caught doing?
Is it just good cover to play the POW card all the time for every challenge because Sen. McCain has been some kind of "Manchurian Candidate" since he returned from Vietnam?
I wish Sen. McCain would tell the story behind his being "broken." Up till now, I had the impression that he had never been. Did I miss something?
Thursday, September 4, 2008
What is that all about?
There are some puzzling things going on that I hear from the internet but not from the mainstream media.
In Denver, three men with a large camera hollowed out to contain a gun, high-powered rifles and ammunition, and stating they were planning to kill Sen. Obama during the convention, were arrested. They were caught with a little meth. The federal attorney, an old colleague of Karl Rove, chose not to charge the men with anything serious. "They are 'meth heads' and weren't ever a serious threat." That got about twenty seconds on one of the nightly news programs.
Meanwhile in St. Paul, armed police and sheriff department squads of two to three dozen men surrounded and disrupted peace groups who had rented homes in the Twin Cities. Pictures showed up on the internet but not on TV.
Thousands of protesters paraded peacefully in St. Paul but I never heard a word about them in the news. Thousands? No notice to the rest of the world on the public media. . . .
At another demonstration that started peacefully, the police moved in sweeping up everyone "that was in their way." Two of those people were wearing press credentials and were preparing to video the gathering when the police moved in. Those two, one with a Hispanic name and one with a Middle Eastern name, were being physically hassled when Amy Goodman who is a well known journalist (also wearing press credentials) came up to the officer who injured her staff only to herself be arrested. The video is on YouTube . . . but not on television.
One of the guys involved in the "Swift Boating" of Sen. John Kerry, Ted Sampley, is quoted as saying that John McCain has never fully disclosed the "extent to which he cooperated with the Vietnamese." Sampley is also angry with how McCain actively advocated for normalization with Vietnam after the war, an action which essentially ended efforts to return POW/MIAs, despite "credible evidence" that there were Americans still alive there.
The Manchester GUARDIAN printed an interview with Sen. Joe Biden who reaffirmed that in an Obama administration, the Attorney General would research what is already known to see if any of the things done by the Bush Administration were criminal, such as torture, rendition, etc. Too bad Manchester is in England! This hasn't been reported here.
Did you know that Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who still has delegates ready to vote for him instead of Sen. McCain, held rallies in Minneapolis that brought more people than the Republican National Convention? The rallies were planned after the planning committee for the RNC offered no place on the program for Rep. Paul. If it hadn't been for the internet, I wouldn't have known it either!
A new ad involving a former Vietnam POW mentions that not long after Sen. McCain was captured, Ho Chi Min died. The new government was not nearly as cruel in their treatment of POWs as Ho had been.
I've only seen these bits online myself. But I don't have the resources to research the issues and background which the media have to check out the meaning of these bits.
Maybe I'm getting old and incompetent but when I run into things like the above that seem to be newsworthy, but are not noted in the press or network news, I really have no idea what that is about.
In Denver, three men with a large camera hollowed out to contain a gun, high-powered rifles and ammunition, and stating they were planning to kill Sen. Obama during the convention, were arrested. They were caught with a little meth. The federal attorney, an old colleague of Karl Rove, chose not to charge the men with anything serious. "They are 'meth heads' and weren't ever a serious threat." That got about twenty seconds on one of the nightly news programs.
Meanwhile in St. Paul, armed police and sheriff department squads of two to three dozen men surrounded and disrupted peace groups who had rented homes in the Twin Cities. Pictures showed up on the internet but not on TV.
Thousands of protesters paraded peacefully in St. Paul but I never heard a word about them in the news. Thousands? No notice to the rest of the world on the public media. . . .
At another demonstration that started peacefully, the police moved in sweeping up everyone "that was in their way." Two of those people were wearing press credentials and were preparing to video the gathering when the police moved in. Those two, one with a Hispanic name and one with a Middle Eastern name, were being physically hassled when Amy Goodman who is a well known journalist (also wearing press credentials) came up to the officer who injured her staff only to herself be arrested. The video is on YouTube . . . but not on television.
One of the guys involved in the "Swift Boating" of Sen. John Kerry, Ted Sampley, is quoted as saying that John McCain has never fully disclosed the "extent to which he cooperated with the Vietnamese." Sampley is also angry with how McCain actively advocated for normalization with Vietnam after the war, an action which essentially ended efforts to return POW/MIAs, despite "credible evidence" that there were Americans still alive there.
The Manchester GUARDIAN printed an interview with Sen. Joe Biden who reaffirmed that in an Obama administration, the Attorney General would research what is already known to see if any of the things done by the Bush Administration were criminal, such as torture, rendition, etc. Too bad Manchester is in England! This hasn't been reported here.
Did you know that Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who still has delegates ready to vote for him instead of Sen. McCain, held rallies in Minneapolis that brought more people than the Republican National Convention? The rallies were planned after the planning committee for the RNC offered no place on the program for Rep. Paul. If it hadn't been for the internet, I wouldn't have known it either!
A new ad involving a former Vietnam POW mentions that not long after Sen. McCain was captured, Ho Chi Min died. The new government was not nearly as cruel in their treatment of POWs as Ho had been.
I've only seen these bits online myself. But I don't have the resources to research the issues and background which the media have to check out the meaning of these bits.
Maybe I'm getting old and incompetent but when I run into things like the above that seem to be newsworthy, but are not noted in the press or network news, I really have no idea what that is about.
Gov. Palin
The Alaskan Governor is a very good public speaker. She delivers a speech, while written by others, in a way that shows she can put her own voice into it. In other words, she owned it. And the Republicans at the convention loved it.
She learned from the Obama acceptance speech to look into the camera nearly full time. That may have been a wiser choice of camera location than for Sen. Obama. So she may have connected better with the TV audience.
She also learned a lot of international politics in a hurry because she traversed the pronunciations and ideas in the most complex part of the speech. What she actually knows may not be relevant because she can present it with a little background and practice, something most politicians have to be able to do since the world is so complex.
She is not to be underestimated . . . even if she says "noocular" like President Bush. She is a formidable opponent for the Democrats as far as stage presence and cleverness is concerned.
-"Cleverness" is to be distinguished from "intelligence" in my use today in this way: intelligence includes a vast amount of information at the disposal of the clever mind. Spin doctors like Dan Bartlett are clever too. It takes intelligence to realize what the spin is and to counter it.* -
She will be effective in the debates. One of her opponents in the governor's race failed to get her to be more specific in her responses to questions. She is very capable of presenting generalities which are hard to disagree with and can stay among them despite pressure to give more content. In her speech last night, she was given specifics to counter that critique. But she will probably be capable of sounding good in the debates without them.
She is a popular governor. Alaskans voted for her because she promised to involve them in the profits of the energy companies. She negotiated a different deal than her predecessor and as a result, during her first year in office, every Alaskan man, woman, and child, received around $1,600. That would give any governor an 80 per cent approval rating.
She is a clever person. She has spun that negotiation into "standing up to the oil companies" without having to say she is also fully supporting their expanded exploration and exploitation of Alaska's energy.
Will she draw the disenchanted "Hillary voters" to the Republicans?
That is the major gamble of her selection by Sen. McCain.
That is hard to say.
If the Republican women had come to Sen. Clinton's aid when she was concerned about sexism against her, there is a good chance the Clintonites might vote Republican this time. Instead, she was called a "whiner" by Republicans (including Gov. Palin!) and their women remained silent.
If Gov. Palin was pro-choice, there would be a chance of cross-over voting.
Most likely, the followers of Sen. Clinton who refuse to vote for Obama will just pass on that vote but vote for Democratic Congressional candidates. That will be terribly important in final results of the Nov. 4 elections.
In the meantime, what I will be most interested in watching is how soon Gov. Palin takes the spotlight away from Sen. McCain and how he will react to it. We may see as soon as Sen. McCain's acceptance speech tonight . . . .
-----
*Update: There are many words related to the intellectual capabilities of a person. My little statement about "clever" and "intelligent" doesn't come close to adequately assessing Gov. Palin's astuteness.
She is a very sharp person. As a colleague said of her, "She's a quick study." That was apparent to me as I noted above.
Wise? Intellectual? Scholarly? Reasonable? I am not ready to use those words to describe Gov. Palin. But she has as potent a set of "smarts" as any of the major politicians today and I hope the Democrats will not learn that the hard way.
She learned from the Obama acceptance speech to look into the camera nearly full time. That may have been a wiser choice of camera location than for Sen. Obama. So she may have connected better with the TV audience.
She also learned a lot of international politics in a hurry because she traversed the pronunciations and ideas in the most complex part of the speech. What she actually knows may not be relevant because she can present it with a little background and practice, something most politicians have to be able to do since the world is so complex.
She is not to be underestimated . . . even if she says "noocular" like President Bush. She is a formidable opponent for the Democrats as far as stage presence and cleverness is concerned.
-"Cleverness" is to be distinguished from "intelligence" in my use today in this way: intelligence includes a vast amount of information at the disposal of the clever mind. Spin doctors like Dan Bartlett are clever too. It takes intelligence to realize what the spin is and to counter it.* -
She will be effective in the debates. One of her opponents in the governor's race failed to get her to be more specific in her responses to questions. She is very capable of presenting generalities which are hard to disagree with and can stay among them despite pressure to give more content. In her speech last night, she was given specifics to counter that critique. But she will probably be capable of sounding good in the debates without them.
She is a popular governor. Alaskans voted for her because she promised to involve them in the profits of the energy companies. She negotiated a different deal than her predecessor and as a result, during her first year in office, every Alaskan man, woman, and child, received around $1,600. That would give any governor an 80 per cent approval rating.
She is a clever person. She has spun that negotiation into "standing up to the oil companies" without having to say she is also fully supporting their expanded exploration and exploitation of Alaska's energy.
Will she draw the disenchanted "Hillary voters" to the Republicans?
That is the major gamble of her selection by Sen. McCain.
That is hard to say.
If the Republican women had come to Sen. Clinton's aid when she was concerned about sexism against her, there is a good chance the Clintonites might vote Republican this time. Instead, she was called a "whiner" by Republicans (including Gov. Palin!) and their women remained silent.
If Gov. Palin was pro-choice, there would be a chance of cross-over voting.
Most likely, the followers of Sen. Clinton who refuse to vote for Obama will just pass on that vote but vote for Democratic Congressional candidates. That will be terribly important in final results of the Nov. 4 elections.
In the meantime, what I will be most interested in watching is how soon Gov. Palin takes the spotlight away from Sen. McCain and how he will react to it. We may see as soon as Sen. McCain's acceptance speech tonight . . . .
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*Update: There are many words related to the intellectual capabilities of a person. My little statement about "clever" and "intelligent" doesn't come close to adequately assessing Gov. Palin's astuteness.
She is a very sharp person. As a colleague said of her, "She's a quick study." That was apparent to me as I noted above.
Wise? Intellectual? Scholarly? Reasonable? I am not ready to use those words to describe Gov. Palin. But she has as potent a set of "smarts" as any of the major politicians today and I hope the Democrats will not learn that the hard way.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Politics, A-r-r-g-h!
Let me add my voice to the ones pointing out how the hurricane is being politicized!
I am most disturbed by the way Sen. McCain and President Bush feel they have to be present among the people who are working on preparations for and recovery from the hurricane.
When a major political figure shows up in such places, the disruption is incredible. Each of those men has with him Secret Service who have to disrupt what is going on to assure security. In addition, all the staff each brings take up space which emergency activities need to be left open. On top of them, are the press who will not only take up space but be asking questions of emergency personnel for their stories.
Maybe worse is that all transportation around the visit has to stop for the reason of security along all travel routes of the two politicians and around where they are.
Every stop the President and the Republican nominee makes along the route of the storm increases the disturbance to the efforts!
Sen. Obama has been wise to stay away even if that does not seem as "Presidential." It is just a lot smarter. He (and the President and Sen. McCain) should stay at a place where communications are excellent to keep up with what is going on and from which they can "call in" their concern and support during the storm itself without causing logistical nightmares for the people on the ground.
The disruption of the people who are trying to organize relief and response to the storm just to get photo ops for political reasons is an absolutely unnecessary stress.
I am most disturbed by the way Sen. McCain and President Bush feel they have to be present among the people who are working on preparations for and recovery from the hurricane.
When a major political figure shows up in such places, the disruption is incredible. Each of those men has with him Secret Service who have to disrupt what is going on to assure security. In addition, all the staff each brings take up space which emergency activities need to be left open. On top of them, are the press who will not only take up space but be asking questions of emergency personnel for their stories.
Maybe worse is that all transportation around the visit has to stop for the reason of security along all travel routes of the two politicians and around where they are.
Every stop the President and the Republican nominee makes along the route of the storm increases the disturbance to the efforts!
Sen. Obama has been wise to stay away even if that does not seem as "Presidential." It is just a lot smarter. He (and the President and Sen. McCain) should stay at a place where communications are excellent to keep up with what is going on and from which they can "call in" their concern and support during the storm itself without causing logistical nightmares for the people on the ground.
The disruption of the people who are trying to organize relief and response to the storm just to get photo ops for political reasons is an absolutely unnecessary stress.
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