Friday, September 12, 2008
'A Vote for Frank Peters is a Vote for America'
"Before meeting Jack, though, I retouched base at the Portland Airport with that city’s foremost rogue and outrageous character, Frank Peters, a still strapping, 63-year-old blond hunk, world-class senior basketball player, notorious degenerate and womanizer who currently owns and operates a crew of 15 girls at his Grand Cafe nightclub on the wrong side of the Willamette River that separates it from the more opulent downtown. Peters, who held a single balloon to welcome me at the airport after a 43-year separation, sometimes carries around a book entitled “How to Deal with Your Oversized Penis” and makes sure to place it over his snoozing face whenever he flies somewhere.Peters, who once played for and managed the Portland Maverick baseball team, ran for mayor on the outlaw platform, (he received around 20 votes), and his nightclub sports hundreds of framed and life-sized photos of himself. After a few drinks at his bar, he took me on a tour of strip clubs (something unheard of in San Luis Obispo County). In the morning I helped Frank count the booty from the legalized slot machines in his establishment, and later I was picked up out front by Jack Joyce of Rogue Ales."
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Poll Position: Be Very Afraid
Oh no! The polls! They suddenly don't look good for Barack Obama! But does it really matter at this point? Should the campaign—and its supporters—start to panic? We checked in with two Democratic strategists who have different opinions on the situation. Here's the case for pessimism.
The jobless rate is up, home sales are down, and the Democrats have an appealing, history-making nominee. So that rash of McCain red, spreading like measles over the RealClearPolitics.com polling chart, is nothing to worry about—a temporary Republican sugar high, right?
Not so fast. Yes, this year's trends should favor the Democrats, with a poor economy and an unpopular Republican president. But we can't ignore how much the underlying landscape always favors the Republicans.
Sunday night, USA Today released a shocking poll that puts McCain four healthy points above 50%, leading Obama by 54%-44%, with only 2% undecided. Six other polls have McCain narrowly ahead or tied; none has Obama leading—a sharp reversal from last week.
If you hide behind electoral maps or statistical projections at your favorite number-crunching site, and ignore the national polls because "it's 50 state elections," you'll be lulled by projections based on weeks-old data, often conducted by middling polling operations. And you'll miss what's happened.
This election just flipped.
It's not "over," and Obama is far from doomed. But important dynamics were established over the summer, and especially the past 10 days, that help McCain tremendously.
Panic isn't helpful, but neither is denial. Actually, a little panic at Obama HQ would be prudent. An absence of panic means no lessons are being learned.
The biggest threat to Democrats winning the presidency—despite an economic agenda much better than the GOP's for the disengaged, downscale voters who decide elections—is always the decades-old perception by those voters that Democrats aren't "like them"—that they're culturally alien.
Bill Clinton was able to beat that tag, though he ultimately won more with his economic message than because of any stirring reaction to his "man from Hope" bio. But Republicans successfully attacked the basic American values of Michael Dukakis and John Kerry. Both lost, despite favorable political winds.
The economy's important. But you won't win over the undecided voters with generic-sounding economic proposals—like "cutting taxes for 95% of Americans" or "preserving Social Security"—if you can't convince them you come from the same place they do. The promises are great but lack credibility, and voters are anxious.
Race aside—and it's a huge factor, of course—Obama has struggled all year with looking like he "gets" the lives of those whose votes he needs. By choosing Palin, Republicans set a trap that made that vulnerability critical.
Commiserating with Iowa farmers about the high price of arugula at Whole Foods wasn't too swift. Much worse were the off-the-record comments about bitter people in small towns clinging to their guns and religion.
Obama's attempts to establish that he didn't come from the elite were tone-deaf: Talking about student loans you've only recently paid off isn't the best way to convince non-college-educated voters that you're one of them. Neither is telling them that your wife is a Brady Bunch fan.
When the Republicans rolled out the real deal, Wal-Mart mom Palin, Democrats took the bait.
First, they opened up a very unhelpful debate over experience. As Kirsten Powers points out in today's New York Post, "Lured by the McCain camp, Obama supporters engaged in an argument about who had more overall experience—the top of the Democratic ticket or the bottom of the GOP ticket." Making the obvious attack on Palin's experience only shifted the battle to McCain's best territory.
But the main damage was cultural, as Kirsten's must-read explains. It was so obvious to all the smart people supporting Obama that a small-town mayor is unqualified for leadership! They swapped mocking e-mails, cackled that Palin was a Quayle/Eagleton disaster who'd soon be off the ticket, and argued that the recklessness of her selection demonstrated John McCain's mental instability.
And instantly, they undid all Obama's success in winning new consideration in the small towns that resisted him in the primaries, and that had been insulted by his "bitter" remarks.
Palin, of course, was a huge hit at the convention. But so blinded by derision were the Democrats, and the media, that they completely missed the launch of a "new Ronald Reagan" a family-values superstar cooked up, under the radar, in the Republicans' Alaskan Frankenlab.
So now, McCain and Palin cast themselves as America's team, and Obama as the exotic community organizer from Hawaii who bugs people to go to meetings.
When Palin's background and "redneck" origins were so savagely ridiculed by Democrats, her mockery of "community organizers" came off as admirable gumption. She was fighting back. Soon, Obama was reduced to pleading that his organizing—which he'd made central to his bio—represented only a brief phase after college. You see, he explained, he went on to become a professor of constitutional law and a state Senator.
Barack Obama has never needed to win swing voters. His entire career has been based on appealing to core Democrats—from his organizer days, to his state Senate career, to his 2004 speech to a packed Boston convention hall, and his US Senate race that same year (he had no serious Republican opposition), to his stunning series of primary and caucus victories earlier this year. This results in a certain tin ear when it comes to communicating with the economically anxious, politically disengaged voters who Bill Clinton had such a gift for reaching out to.
But the problem isn't only Obama himself, it's those around him who live in the same bubble, who think a good way to connect with average American voters is to stage a mass rally—more than double the size of Obama's largest U.S. crowd—in a foreign country. Or who think it's persuasive to argue, as Jacob Weisberg did recently, that if we don't elect Obama we'll be shamed before the entire world:
>>>"If Obama loses, our children will grow up thinking of equal opportunity as a myth. His defeat would say that when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to. In this event, the world's judgment will be severe and inescapable: The United States had its day but, in the end, couldn't put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race."
This is the thinking that loses elections. The new rash of polls is a wake-up call.
Peter Feld is a writer and long-time Democratic strategist.
Oh no! The polls! They suddenly don't look good for Barack Obama! But does it really matter at this point? Should the campaign—and its supporters—start to panic? We checked in with two Democratic strategists who have different opinions on the situation. Here's the case for pessimism.
The jobless rate is up, home sales are down, and the Democrats have an appealing, history-making nominee. So that rash of McCain red, spreading like measles over the RealClearPolitics.com polling chart, is nothing to worry about—a temporary Republican sugar high, right?
Not so fast. Yes, this year's trends should favor the Democrats, with a poor economy and an unpopular Republican president. But we can't ignore how much the underlying landscape always favors the Republicans.
Sunday night, USA Today released a shocking poll that puts McCain four healthy points above 50%, leading Obama by 54%-44%, with only 2% undecided. Six other polls have McCain narrowly ahead or tied; none has Obama leading—a sharp reversal from last week.
If you hide behind electoral maps or statistical projections at your favorite number-crunching site, and ignore the national polls because "it's 50 state elections," you'll be lulled by projections based on weeks-old data, often conducted by middling polling operations. And you'll miss what's happened.
This election just flipped.
It's not "over," and Obama is far from doomed. But important dynamics were established over the summer, and especially the past 10 days, that help McCain tremendously.
Panic isn't helpful, but neither is denial. Actually, a little panic at Obama HQ would be prudent. An absence of panic means no lessons are being learned.
The biggest threat to Democrats winning the presidency—despite an economic agenda much better than the GOP's for the disengaged, downscale voters who decide elections—is always the decades-old perception by those voters that Democrats aren't "like them"—that they're culturally alien.
Bill Clinton was able to beat that tag, though he ultimately won more with his economic message than because of any stirring reaction to his "man from Hope" bio. But Republicans successfully attacked the basic American values of Michael Dukakis and John Kerry. Both lost, despite favorable political winds.
The economy's important. But you won't win over the undecided voters with generic-sounding economic proposals—like "cutting taxes for 95% of Americans" or "preserving Social Security"—if you can't convince them you come from the same place they do. The promises are great but lack credibility, and voters are anxious.
Race aside—and it's a huge factor, of course—Obama has struggled all year with looking like he "gets" the lives of those whose votes he needs. By choosing Palin, Republicans set a trap that made that vulnerability critical.
Commiserating with Iowa farmers about the high price of arugula at Whole Foods wasn't too swift. Much worse were the off-the-record comments about bitter people in small towns clinging to their guns and religion.
Obama's attempts to establish that he didn't come from the elite were tone-deaf: Talking about student loans you've only recently paid off isn't the best way to convince non-college-educated voters that you're one of them. Neither is telling them that your wife is a Brady Bunch fan.
When the Republicans rolled out the real deal, Wal-Mart mom Palin, Democrats took the bait.
First, they opened up a very unhelpful debate over experience. As Kirsten Powers points out in today's New York Post, "Lured by the McCain camp, Obama supporters engaged in an argument about who had more overall experience—the top of the Democratic ticket or the bottom of the GOP ticket." Making the obvious attack on Palin's experience only shifted the battle to McCain's best territory.
But the main damage was cultural, as Kirsten's must-read explains. It was so obvious to all the smart people supporting Obama that a small-town mayor is unqualified for leadership! They swapped mocking e-mails, cackled that Palin was a Quayle/Eagleton disaster who'd soon be off the ticket, and argued that the recklessness of her selection demonstrated John McCain's mental instability.
And instantly, they undid all Obama's success in winning new consideration in the small towns that resisted him in the primaries, and that had been insulted by his "bitter" remarks.
Palin, of course, was a huge hit at the convention. But so blinded by derision were the Democrats, and the media, that they completely missed the launch of a "new Ronald Reagan" a family-values superstar cooked up, under the radar, in the Republicans' Alaskan Frankenlab.
So now, McCain and Palin cast themselves as America's team, and Obama as the exotic community organizer from Hawaii who bugs people to go to meetings.
When Palin's background and "redneck" origins were so savagely ridiculed by Democrats, her mockery of "community organizers" came off as admirable gumption. She was fighting back. Soon, Obama was reduced to pleading that his organizing—which he'd made central to his bio—represented only a brief phase after college. You see, he explained, he went on to become a professor of constitutional law and a state Senator.
Barack Obama has never needed to win swing voters. His entire career has been based on appealing to core Democrats—from his organizer days, to his state Senate career, to his 2004 speech to a packed Boston convention hall, and his US Senate race that same year (he had no serious Republican opposition), to his stunning series of primary and caucus victories earlier this year. This results in a certain tin ear when it comes to communicating with the economically anxious, politically disengaged voters who Bill Clinton had such a gift for reaching out to.
But the problem isn't only Obama himself, it's those around him who live in the same bubble, who think a good way to connect with average American voters is to stage a mass rally—more than double the size of Obama's largest U.S. crowd—in a foreign country. Or who think it's persuasive to argue, as Jacob Weisberg did recently, that if we don't elect Obama we'll be shamed before the entire world:
>>>"If Obama loses, our children will grow up thinking of equal opportunity as a myth. His defeat would say that when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to. In this event, the world's judgment will be severe and inescapable: The United States had its day but, in the end, couldn't put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race."
This is the thinking that loses elections. The new rash of polls is a wake-up call.
Peter Feld is a writer and long-time Democratic strategist.
In honor of Kim Jong-Il:- 5'2" and wears 4" lifts.
- According to propaganda in NK, neither he or his father urinate or defecate.
- Over 7000+ Mercedes automobiles. in 1998 he is said to have ordered 200 S Class Mercedes at $100,000 each. Critics say that this $20 million was one-fifth of the total aid promised to North Korea in 1998 by the United Nations. One-third of North Koreans receive UN food aid every year.
- Afraid to fly, travels by armoured train and uses silver chopsticks to thwart poisen
- In 1994, Hennessy said that Kim Jong-il was its best customer for cognac for two years running, switching from Hennessy VSOP to $630-a-bottle Hennessy Paradis in 1992. When doctors told him to stop smoking, all senior officers in his army were required to quit with him.
- Birth greated by double rainbow and bright start in sky (!)
- He is said to have a library of 20,000 Hollywood movies and to have even written a book on the cinema. He even went so far as to engineer the kidnapping, in 1978, of a South Korean film director and his girlfriend.
- Claimed to have 11 holes-in-one in a single round of golf.
- According to a Newsweek report, he has been married four times and favours Scandinavian blondes. He created `pleasure teams' to `service' him and his father when he was a young man, and often has parties in his seven-storey pleasure palace surrounded by women.
- His wine cellar reportedly contains nearly 10,000 bottles, his library thousands of cookbooks and texts on gastronomy. An institute in Pyongyang, the capital, staffed by some of North Korea’s best-trained doctors, is devoted to ensuring that Kim eats not only the most delectable but also the most healthful foods – “The purpose of the institute is 100% to prolong the life of Kim Jong Il,” said Seok Young Hwan, a physician who worked there and later defected to South Korea. He said 200 professionals were working just in the division that handled Kim’s diet.
- Has written 400 operas!
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Thursday, September 04, 2008
You have to love Lawyers.
Imagine if you had to get permission before you linked to the Web site of companies, people or organizations.
If “permission-based” linking was a requirement - blogging and much other Internet activity as we know it (even mainstream media news sites) would cease to exist.
Well, if the lawsuit of one major law firm against an Internet news publication succeeds, that “permission-based” linking may become the law…and effectively kill the Internet.
The upcoming edition of National Law Journal reports (subscription only):
Attorneys at major law firms, including Bryan Cave, Jones Day and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, are finding themselves and their recent home purchases or sales in an Internet spotlight — and some of them aren’t too happy about it.
Blockshopper.com, a Web site that posts information about residential sales in Chicago, St. Louis, Las Vegas and south Florida, highlights lawyers, among other professionals, who recently bought or sold property by naming them, posting their photos and linking to their law firm Web site biographies.
Jones Day, which had two of associates show up on the site, found the coverage so objectionable that it recently sued the Chicago-based Internet company for trademark infringement in the U.S. District Courtfor the Northern District of Illinois.
The unauthorized use is likely “to deceive and cause confusion and mistake among customers as to the source or origin of the service provided or offered for sale by the defendants and the affiliation of Jones Day with those services,” the firm said in the Aug. 12 lawsuit. (Jones Day v. Blockshopper.com, No. 08-4572.)
Trademark infringement? For simply linking to the firm’s Web site? Are you kidding me? But it gets better:
Jones Day offered to take $10,000 to drop the lawsuit if the Web site stopped reporting on the firm, but the company isn’t caving, said Brian Timpone, president of two-year-old Blockshopper LLC.
Bending to the law firm’s demands to stop coverage of the firm’s lawyers would strangle the company’s business model of using public records and publicly available Internet information, he said.
Blockshopper, founded by former newspaper industry professionals, considers itself a next generation media outlet entitled to First Amendment protections just like any other news organization, he said.
“If we don’t fight it, Jones Day could do this to any news organization or any blog,” Timpone said. “You would completely throttle the Internet if you required online journalists and bloggersto get permission before linking.”
If a company doesn’t want people to link its site - then it shouldn’t have a Web site.
We’ll keep you updated on this important lawsuit - but make sure to forward and repost this far and wide.
If “permission-based” linking was a requirement - blogging and much other Internet activity as we know it (even mainstream media news sites) would cease to exist.
Well, if the lawsuit of one major law firm against an Internet news publication succeeds, that “permission-based” linking may become the law…and effectively kill the Internet.
The upcoming edition of National Law Journal reports (subscription only):
Attorneys at major law firms, including Bryan Cave, Jones Day and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, are finding themselves and their recent home purchases or sales in an Internet spotlight — and some of them aren’t too happy about it.
Blockshopper.com, a Web site that posts information about residential sales in Chicago, St. Louis, Las Vegas and south Florida, highlights lawyers, among other professionals, who recently bought or sold property by naming them, posting their photos and linking to their law firm Web site biographies.
Jones Day, which had two of associates show up on the site, found the coverage so objectionable that it recently sued the Chicago-based Internet company for trademark infringement in the U.S. District Courtfor the Northern District of Illinois.
The unauthorized use is likely “to deceive and cause confusion and mistake among customers as to the source or origin of the service provided or offered for sale by the defendants and the affiliation of Jones Day with those services,” the firm said in the Aug. 12 lawsuit. (Jones Day v. Blockshopper.com, No. 08-4572.)
Trademark infringement? For simply linking to the firm’s Web site? Are you kidding me? But it gets better:
Jones Day offered to take $10,000 to drop the lawsuit if the Web site stopped reporting on the firm, but the company isn’t caving, said Brian Timpone, president of two-year-old Blockshopper LLC.
Bending to the law firm’s demands to stop coverage of the firm’s lawyers would strangle the company’s business model of using public records and publicly available Internet information, he said.
Blockshopper, founded by former newspaper industry professionals, considers itself a next generation media outlet entitled to First Amendment protections just like any other news organization, he said.
“If we don’t fight it, Jones Day could do this to any news organization or any blog,” Timpone said. “You would completely throttle the Internet if you required online journalists and bloggersto get permission before linking.”
If a company doesn’t want people to link its site - then it shouldn’t have a Web site.
We’ll keep you updated on this important lawsuit - but make sure to forward and repost this far and wide.
I wish I had faith this will be thrown out.
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On Francisco Franco
On Francisco Franco written by Charles Few Americans know much about Francisco Franco, leader of the winning side in the Spanish C...
