sponsorship
The Mistake: What will Hillary Clinton bring to the Obama administration? British sourcing on this one--an unnamed "veteran" Obama "aide" tells "a friend"--but the ring of truth:
"He's making a mistake." As one of the [Obama aides] participants told a friend later that night: "She'll do a good job but she'll do it for herself, not for Barack. I can't bear the drama again." ... [snip]
The Obama aides who went for coffee on Wednesday discussed how the initial tentative talks between Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton were leaked by the Clinton camp, then how every twist and turn of the financial vetting found its way into the media. ...[snip]
They can't help themselves," the Obama aide told his friend, a fellow Democrat strategist. "Every event is a potential ladder up or a bullet to be dodged. They're positioning and spinning all the time. They lost. Now we seem to be handing them the farm." [E.A.]
Where is Gina Gershon now that we need her? ... [via Lucianne] 11:50 A.M.
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Saturday, November 22, 2008
More signs of the Gran Salida of Illegal Immigrants: Emergency room visits are dropping. In Arizona
In the Maricopa Medical Center in Arizona, the director of the ED commented that 45% of adults and 80% of children seeking ED care at the hospital emergency department are Hispanic. The economy in the area is getting worse and the hospital believes that many of the patients that usually come to the ED have left town
It's not just Arizona--a commenter from North Carolina notes:
Around NC, the poor economy has illegals leaving in droves…no work.
Our ED volumes are down. Most ED patients are those without insurance (lay-offs), so the family doctors won’t see them. Hospital census is down by my estimated guess, 10%. We have 3 ICUs, one is completely closed, the other two at about 60%. Hours being cut throughout.
P.S.: There's a less entrada too--"Mexican emigration has dropped 42 percent over the last two years ..." [Thanks to alert reader W.O.] 11:53 P.M.
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Friday, November 21, 2008
The New Plan? Cripple Honda! Save Detroit with Card Check! Eliminating the secret ballot and making it easier to organize U.S. Honda and Toyota workers (and imposing contract terms via binding arbitration) would "level the playing field," says Dem. Congressman Tim Ryan. ... Then when Honda and Toyota responded by importing more cars from abroad, we could have import quotas! Eventually the whole automotive sector could be planned by Congress in conjunction with existing business and labor interest groups. Red State has seen the future and it is corporatist. ...12:21 P.M.
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Mickey's Assignment Desk: 2000 words on "The Agony of Richard Holbrooke." He can't just be sitting still and patiently waiting for Hillary to make up her mind about whether she wants to be Secretary of State. ... Assigned to: Lloyd Grove. David Ignatius. Or someone young, who doesn't want a foreign policy job someday. (Michael Crowley?) ... Update: Reader emails that "[H]olbrooke WANTS hillary to take sec of state -- that's the only way he gets back into the state dept." OK. Bet he's still been in agony! 11:53 A.M.
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Thursday, November 20, 2008
Mitt Romney writes that in a "managed bankruptcy" of the auto industry
[M]anagement as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.
Why "must" Alan Mulally of Ford go? He practically just got there (in late 2006). He's not a Detroit lifer like GM's Rick Wagoner. He can't be held responsible for Ford's sorry condition--he was brought in to fix Ford's sorry condition. A new face recruited from a successful outside company (Boeing) he seems like just the sort of person Romney says should be hired. Is Romney really sure recruiting another new CEO--who'll have to relearn whatever Mulally has learned--will be so much better? Maybe Romney knows something about Mullaly that I don't. Or maybe he's failing to discriminate among three different companies in a way that can't be the mark of a good "turnaround" artist. ... P.S.: For one thing, Mulally hasn't killed off Ford's new products the way GM and Chrysler seem to be doing--perhaps because Ford has more hope of actually selling its new products. ... 1:43 A.M.
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Crocodiles: Good to see my father's most famous quote back in the news. It's about how hard it was for him as a judge to be uninfluenced by the possibility that voters might boot him from office if they don't like his decision. The quote is freshly relevant because everybody's wondering whether the current California Supreme Court has the balls to invalidate Proposition 8, which reversed that same Court's ruling on gay marriage.
Now the moderately conservative state Supreme Court is being asked to take an even riskier step -- to overturn the November voter initiative that reinstated the gay-marriage ban and possibly provoke a voter revolt that could eject one or more of the justices from the bench. ... [snip]
Kaus later said that as hard as he tried to decide cases impartially, he was never sure whether the threat of a recall election was influencing his votes.
"It was like finding a crocodile in your bathtub when you go to shave in the morning," Kaus said. "You know it's there, and you try not to think about it, but it's hard to think about much else while you're shaving."
I suspect the crocodile effect won't even come into play in the state court's review of Prop. 8. True, the court could throw it out if they decide it amounts to a wholesale "revision" of the state constitution, rather than a mere "amendment." But the arguments that it's a "revision" are implausible. (See Prof. Volokh's analysis.) Precedent and reptile are in accord. I'll be shocked if Prop. 8 isn't upheld.
Does that mean gay-marriage advocates should stop bringing lawsuits? Prof. Althouse asks:
Why should a minority group that perceives itself as oppressed accept the will of the majority? Why should the intransigency of the political majority convince them that they should refrain from using the courts?
The answer is it shouldn't. Gay rights groups remain perfectly free to argue that Prop. 8 is invalid under the federal Equal Protection clause. But they don't want to argue that case, apparently, because they are worried they'll lose.
Gay rights lawyers, fearful that a high court defeat on same-sex marriage would set the movement back decades, have urged supporters to stay out of federal court.
With state constitutions amended, they may have no other judicial remedy. But it still seems simpler, and preferable just to wait a couple of years and overturn Prop. 8 at the ballot box. A democratic resolution will tend to stick. A judicial resolution will produce an ongoing, painful social battle (what abortion has been ever since Roe). ... 1:14 A.M.
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Still not black enough! Sasha Frere-Jones disses Will.i.am. .. 10:23 P.M.
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Rahm: Yes on universal health care, noncommittal on card check. ... The hesitancy about card check would be more significant if Emanuel hadn't been talking to a business group. Still. ... 10:09 P.M.
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Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures: Automobile is offering subscriptions for $6 annually. That includes a free tire gauge. I'm waiting until they offer free tires. ... P.S.: The way things are going could also throw in the New York Times. (Not just a subscription to the New York Times. The New York Times.) ... 8:39 P.M.
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Excitability + Aflatoxin = Iraq War Hillary! Atlantic backscratchers Andrew Sullivan and Jeffrey Goldberg are swooning over Secretary of State Clinton. Sullivan says it's "an inspired idea." Goldberg cites a passage that he says demonstrates Clinton has a "simultaneous mastery of the smallest details and of the biggest themes" that is "beyond impressive." Read it for yourself. Does it reflect Hillary's "uncommon knowledge"? Or is it, rather, an unremarkable politicians' statement that either tells Goldberg what he wants to hear ("You do not get people into a process ... unless the other side knows that your commitment to Israel is unshakable.") or makes Hillary someone Goldberg might like to promote for either political or beat-sweetening reasons? You make the call! ... P.S.: It does seem like he's always selling somethin'! ... P.P.S.: And Holbrooke doesn't know about the Middle East? ... Update: Dick Morris is making sense. Always a troubling sign. ...
Goldberg responds: "I plead guilty to the charge of political promotion." ... :6:28 P.M.
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A young Facebook/PayPal mogul is catching flak from his Silicon Valley peers for his alleged support of ... not Prop. 8**, but Numbers U.S.A., the highly effective "restrictionist" lobbying group. In particular, the mogul is said to have fallen under the sway of a "Christian right wing thinker" named "Rob" Morrow:
Earlier this year, Morrow wrote a paper called "The Bull Market in Politics." His thesis was that "government influence — over trade policy, social programs, decisions of war and peace — becomes much more important" to investors. One key policy area: immigration, where Morrow thinks there is a rising consensus for restrictions.
A politically driven drop in immigration has broad economic implications, especially on the housing market; with less population growth, housing prices will continue to suffer for much longer than most anticipate.
The Northern California beef against Morrow is that he's "not merely forecasting the market. He has cajoled his influential boss to spend money to make his forecast a reality." OK, but what about the forecast? The timing more or less fits, no? Real estate prices started to plummet just as expectations of imminent semi-amnesty were turning into the reality of harsher enforcement. Schools in immigrant heavy areas of L.A. for example, reported declining enrollments in 2006. The nationwide character of the Gran Salida became apparent, even to the press by early 2008. . It seems highly plausible to me that there is some non-trivial causality running between the decrease in the net inflow of illegal immigrants and the real estate bust--all the immigrants who have disappeared would have had to live somewhere. Even if they were renters, not buyers, they would ordinarily have bolstered the value of housing stock. (And some were buyers--search for "this borrower has gone back to Mexico and has no intention of returning.")
But you don't hear many MSM analysts making this obvious connection. It's odd, because you'd think the reporters who favor legalizing illegals and increasing immigration would want to be able to say, "We need more hard-working immigrants to buy our damn houses!" But they aren't saying it. Why? Is it because a) admitting that immigrant populations are declining contradicts the reigning bipartisan right-thinking line that illegal immigrants are here to stay, they're never going back, so therefore we have no choice but to legalize them? Also, b) once you admit that immigration flows affect the real estate market, you might also have to admit that they can affect other markets, like the labor market--where more immigrants would have the likely effect of driving down wages, especially for the unskilled workers who've been doing relatively badly recently. ...
**--The Prop. 8 list is here, though, for those who want to engage in distasteful and counterproductive boycotts. ... 12:58 A.M.
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Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Lieberman keeps chair after anonymous private vote of Senate Dem caucus. Netroots unhappy. Uh, oh. Now they'll really hate the secret ballot. ... 11:53 A.M.
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"How Hard Can It Be?" Ex-National Reviewer David Frum tries to put his finger on what annoys him about what Sarah Palin symbolizes in the GOP (and why she's like Harriet Miers) ... 1:22 A.M.
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Monday, November 17, 2008
James Carville explains why Hillary's nomination as Secretary of State might be complicated by her husband's business dealings:
"She's not married to Todd Palin," Carville said, referring to the oil field worker and snowmobile champion who is married to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee.
Maybe that just accidentally came out sounding like snobby Clintonite arrogance. ... Hadn't had a dose of that for a few months--I didn't miss it. Did you? ... P.S.: Will the Clintonites--those who haven't defected to Obama--now be more obnoxious because they lost? ...11:50 A.M.
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Forget the "Fairness Doctrine," says the American Thinker. The Dems will try to knock out Rush Limbaugh with "localism." Even discounting for right-wing paranoia, you have to think that making broadcasters consult with "leaders in the civic, religious, and non-profit sectors that regularly serve the needs of the community" is a recipe for a lot of makework meetings with self-promoting complainers and shakedown artists.**
There are three more interesting wrinkles, however:
1) The conservative strategy is to delay regulations until Obama is in power! Why this seemingly perverse approach?
The delay is critical, since once it is the Obama Administration leading the fight for rules which would shut down conservative talk radio, Republican Congressmen and Senators will find it easier to fight back. [E.A.]
Hmm. The same non-intuitive logic might apply to another issue I could think of. ...
2) Some broadcasters think McCain would have been worse, from their point of view, than Obama:
One broadcast lobbyist thinks broadcasters will be better off with Obama "only because you know where McCain's from on the issues. At least you're starting off with somewhat of a fresh slate with the Obama folks. There's not that instinctive 'let's go after the broadcasters.' "
3) There's a potential fratricidal conflict between "localism" requirements and minority broadcasters--or at least the Heritage Foundation thinks so:
"An Obama administration would definitely push stricter broadcaster controls on ownership and take more aggressive efforts on diversity, says James Gattuso, senior fellow for regulatory policy at the Heritage Foundation.
"The question is what would an Obama administration do on localism: Would an Obama FCC pursue the moveon.org agenda of strong regulation to enforce local news and content?" he asks."Or would it side more with minority or smaller broadcasters who point out that the cost of regulation would fall disproportionately on minority- and women-owned stations."
**--It's not that diversity and consolidation don't seem valid issues. I wouldn't have a problem with a strict ownership limit that would require Clear Channel, say, to sell half its stations. Just unload them. Whether or not they were serving the "community," No complaints, no hearings, no self-appointed "representatives," no fuss, no muss. The problem is the tendency of liberals to promote not so much de-consolidation as the empowerment and consequent enrichment of their non profit allies.... 10:56 P.M.
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Autoshow Shocker: Ford debuts the new Mustang and it's ... not ugly. 10:10 P.M.
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Vodkapundit makes the basic point about Obama's Blackberry. ... You want the President to rely solely on information passed up the official chain through the White House gatekeepers? That way lies the Bay of Pigs! The chain of command is a lousy way to find out bad news. Emailing around seems like a pretty good way. Is it that much harder to secure than a phone call? Aren't Presidents trusted with the telephone? ... Paranoid P.S.: You have to wonder whether on some level this isn't an an attempt by the White House bureaucracy to control Obama. ... [via Insta] 8:28 P.M.
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Academics are always the last to know! Today, kf. Tomorrow ...
Kausfiles, Nov. 3--"Democrats should pause to be grateful that John Kerry didn't get 70,000 more votes in Ohio in 2004."
David Rohde, Ernestine Friedl Professor of Political Science at Duke University and Director of the Political Institutions and Public Choice Program, Nov. 17--"Let's call John Kerry's loss in 2004 what it is: the luckiest thing to happen to Democrats in 40 years."
10:23 A.M.
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The NYT gloats that Chris Buckley and David Frum's exit suggests National Review has become an un-erudite "megaphone for Republican party orthodoxy" and "'intellectual defender of the Bush administration.'" I can name one issue where that was definitely not true, in part because there was no party orthodoxy and in part because most of the magazine's editors openly disagreed with the Bush administration. Begins with an "i." (And it's not Iraq. Or Iran.) . ... P.S.: Buckley seems to be basking in his Strange New Respect. If Frum wants to keep his street cred on The Corner, which I suspect he does, I counsel him not to follow suit. ... [via Gawker, which has suddenly become much more substantive. What happened to Julia Allison?.] 2:12 A.M.
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I dunno, I'm having trouble figuring out what Obama supporter Marty Peretz really thinks of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State:
[T]he young Hillary was a fashionable leftie. No, she wasn't Bill Ayers. But her Wellesley commencement address was especially trite when trite was the rule. She worked for a communist law firm. She was faddish when independent thinking was what the country needed.
Hillary then went to Little Rock, armed with a Yale Law School diploma, and worked for another law firm, this one positively sleazy.
It goes on from there ...
Now, if Barack Obama has actually offered Hillary the post of secretary of state, he has reversed what most Americans thought was one of the much sought-after consequences of his nomination and his electoral victory. That is, sought after by the voters. And this was to end the Clinton dominion in American politics. That's certainly what the primaries were about. Once Obama freed himself and the party from the vice presidential blackmail almost everyone assumed that, with Joe Biden as their candidate's running-mate, the Democratic nominee did not need the experience of someone who'd visited 81 capitals for a day or two or who'd been to Bosnia "under fire" or who kissed Suha Arafat right only moments after the pampered lady had accused Israel of spreading cancer in the West Bank. ...
I believe Barack is playing with fire.
He's for Holbrooke. ... P.S: Don't recent events tend to support Marty's view? We're already worrying whether Hillary is scheming to maniuplate Barack (by making public the possibility of her becoming Secretary of State and implicitly threatening a rupture if she's not picked) before she even has the job. Maybe LBJ was wrong. Sometimes you want them outside the tent p------g in. ...The very reasons she might want the job (i.e., she doesn't have that much seniority or power in the Senate) are the reasons she couldn't do that much damage from the outside. ... 12:44 A.M.
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Sunday, November 16, 2008
Future Unrecanters of America? On reflection, does Peter Beinart's well written Time cover essay on "The New Liberal Order" say anything other than, in essence, 'If Obama and the Democrats succeed in restoring the economy and stabilizing the government's finances without cutting popular programs or producing social disorder, they'll keep being reelected for decades'? Well, yeah. ... Beinart abstracts from the question of whether Obama and Democratic policies can actually achieve this winning result. It's one thing to say that if Obama tries to "shore up the American welfare state" it "won't divide his political coaliton." (They like the welfare state.) It's another thing to recognize that Medicare is heading for deep deficits and to figure out how to pay for it without imposing intolerable rationing. ... And of course Beinart just assumes that if Democrats give labor more power it won't significantly gum up the economy. Or that some Democrats won't reestablish no-work cash welfare under another name, giving the Republicans back one of their more potent issues. ...
P.S.: Beinart says
Obama doesn't have to turn the economy around overnight. After all, Roosevelt hadn't ended the Depression by 1936. Obama just needs modest economic improvement by the time he starts running for re-election ....
Are we sure of that? In a time of Faster Politics voters may want Faster Results. They're certainly not going to give Obama the time they gave FDR. ...
P.P.S.: I thought Dems would only succeed if they put a war against "Islamist totalitarianism" at "the center of their hopes for a better world"! Oh, well. Another day, another weltanschauung. ...
P.P.P.S.: Aren't now-recanted Iraq War supporters like Beinart about to unrecant their support, now that the war is going better? ... A prize for the reader who correctly guesses the first recantation-recanter. ... 11:42 P.M.
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Poor "Pulitzer" Chuck Philips! Patterico is on Philips' case, he doesn't seem about to give up, and he has a hot doc. ... P.S.: This isn't the embarrassing Philips screw-up that led to a spectacular LAT retraction in April. This is another, potentially more-than-embarrassing, incident--but also related to the Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls murder stories. ... 9:46 P.M.
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Sorry to miss the Fannie Mae Help the Homeless Walkathon! ....9:34 P.M.
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sponsorship
If (like me) you want to feel better about Barack Obama, try reading conservative Bradford Berenson's Frontline comments on Obama's performance at the Harvard Law Review. Excerpt:
I think Barack took 10 times as much grief from those on the left on the Review as from those of us on the right. And the reason was, I think there was an expectation among those editors on the left that he would affirmatively use the modest powers of his position to advance the cause, whatever that was. They thought, you know, finally there's an African American president of the Harvard Law Review; it's our turn, and he should aggressively use this position, and his authority and his bully pulpit to advance the political or philosophical causes that we all believe in.
And Barack was reluctant to do that. It's not that he was out of sympathy with their views, but his first and foremost goal, it always seemed to me, was to put out a first-rate publication. ... [snip]
It confirmed the hope that I and others had had at the time of the election that he would basically be an honest broker, that he would not let ideology or politics blind him to the enduring institutional interests of the Review. It told me that he valued the success of his own presidency of the Review above scoring political points of currying favor with his political supporters.
12:23 A.M.
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Friday, October 17, 2008
The Last Stunt is Always to Drop All the Stunts: Hmm. If, as Mike Murphy argues, 1) McCain's negative campaigning hurt him, and 2) his brief moments of non-negativity before the debate were helping him--something Gallup seems to support--but if 3) his renewed and MSM-amplified negativity during the debate turns out to have hurt him again, is there time left before the election for McCain to flip back again and 4) dramatically drop the attacks and make a direct, affirmative case for his presidency? The Feiler Faster Thesis says "yes," as it usually does. There are two whole weeks to go! ... But what does McCain do with the second week? ... P.S.: Republican incumbent Norm Coleman pulled this very stunt in Minnesota. Is it working for him? Quinnipiac has him only 2 points down. ... 4:15 A.M.
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Mark Krikorian, who knows as much about immigration politics as anyone, sticks by his conclusion that McCain, not Obama, would be "more likely to get an amnesty through Congress." His reasoning is similar to that of Democratic Rep. Artur Davis: Without a Republican in the White House actively promoting legalization, Republicans in Congress will be free to coalesce in opposition to any Obama legalization push. ... You also have to wonder: If even John McCain's lifelong (and only temporarily suspended) campaign for legalization doesn't get him much support among Hispanics--who currently seem to prefer Obama 2-to-1--will Republicans in general finally give up on the cynical Rovian dream of using immigration liberalization to win over that growing ethnic group? ... 3:23 A.M.
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Thursday, October 16, 2008
I forgot to ask Bob Wright if he'd serve on a board with William Ayers. ... I think I know what his answer would be regarding Luis Posada and Eduardo Arocena.. ...P.S.: Wright calls Sarah Palin's "palling around with terrorists" charge against Obama
one of the most despicable acts in the history of American campaign politics.
and even issues a challenge to come up with something more despicable. ... Bloggingheads commenters rise to the occasion. ... Update: Maguire offers some useful sober skepticism on Obama's "palling" defense. ... 11:52 P.M.
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USA Today editorializes against "card check." The more attention this issue gets, the less chance it has of passing, you'd think. It's hard to publicly defend getting rid of the secret ballot. ... I'd like to see Obama try it. (Since he's for "card check," shouldn't he be asked to explain his position?) ... P.S.: No wonder Democrats would want to rush "card check" through, in the early days of his presidency, before too many people notice--and when press reports are likely to be buried under a crush of other news. ... 5:10 P.M.
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Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Final Debate: Before I get spun: 1) McCain did himself some good in this zero-sum game because in the first half of the debate he seemed sunny, yet had Obama on the defensive; 2) But not enough good; 3) Specifically, McCain failed to drive home the risk of placing so much power and trust in a relative unknown. Why couldn't he say, "I know I'm behind by a few points. But do you really know what you're getting with Sen. Obama?" Everything else in this campaign has been so crudely explicit--with talk by Obama of a "pivot" and appeals, not to "the people" but to "Joe Sixpack" and "the middle class." You'd think McCain could just come out and say, "Message: Buyer's Remorse!" ... 4) Obama's answer on the have-you-ever-bucked-your-party question was strong. His answer on Ayers was weak, all the weaker because he seemed to think it was strong; ... 5) "Senator Government." McCain's best line was an accidental slip. 6) Also liked "Bresh of Freath Air." So true! ... 6) Bob Schieffer made McCain look young and vigorous. 7). But you had to love the way that sly old Schieffer snuck in a few unexpected questions to throw the candidates off and reveal their true characters! ... Oh wait, He didn't do any of that! Instead he made utterly predictable stabs at vague, CW-approved topics, as if he was trying to out-bore Brokaw. He succeeded. ... He made Jim Lehrer look like Jim Cramer! ... Is this the end of the MSM Dinosaur Moderator? ...Next time: Chris Buckley and Glenn Loury! ... 8) Most telling passage:. Two times, if I remember right, McCain rattled off long lists of occasions when he had gone against his party, and each time he left off "immigration," his most salient anti-GOP heresy. (He brifely mentioned it later in a more anodyne context.) Once Obama had an opening to back up his charge that McCain was an unreliable champion of "comprehensive immigration reform." He didn't take it. This suggests that both candidates recognize that pushing "comprehensive immigration reform"--i.e. legaliztion--is a loser with the general electorate. Or it's at least very risky. Both would confine it to targeted appeals to Latinos on Spanish language radio and TV, which most voters never hear about. No Hispandering in public! .... Don't you agree, Tamar? .. 9) A crude translation of McCain's initial salvo on the economy: The problem is that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac tried, by buying up mortgages, to encourage home ownership in the face of economic reality. So we need a new Fannie Mae to buy up mortgages and encourage home ownership in the face of economic reality! ...10) McCain constantly calls for "transparency." Is that a word voters understand, or is it Beltway code? ... 11) Obama's praise of the new DC school chancellor is certainly a coded appeal--an appeal to people like me. Chancellor Rhee is not a teachers' union favorite. ... 12) How many parents of autistic kids could there be? ... 13) If polling produces a "Bradley Effect," in which ordinary citizens will say whatever they think is PC in front of a lone pollster, won't CNN-style "dial groups," in which voters record their reactions in front of a massive TV audience, produce a Super-Bradley Effect? ... 14) McCain on his health plan:
Now, 95 percent of the people in America will receive more money under my plan because they will receive not only their present benefits, which may be taxed, which will be taxed, but then you add $5,000 onto it, except for those people who have the gold-plated Cadillac insurance policies that have to do with cosmetic surgery and transplants and all of those kinds of things
So in John McCain's America you don't get life-saving transplants? Sounds more like Great Britain. ... One reason I tend to favor government-provided health insurance is that I know that in the U.S. the political pressure will always be to pay for expensive, complicated medical treatements, and I don't mind if 40% of our GDP goes to complicated medical treatments. ... 15) Obama used the word "invest"--as in "invest in the American people"--quite a bit. This is a liberal cliche that sets my teeth on edge, but I don't know if that's true of swing voters. On the other hand, "spread the wealth around" could have widespread appeal! (McCain thought it obviously could mean only static, pie-slicing redistribution, but as a slogan it might also mean something like "more generalized growth," no? Update: In fact, that seems to have been the way Obama used the phrase. He said, "My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody.") ... 6:50 P.M./updated 9:15 P.M.
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Obama's Fast Labor Payoff: kf hears from a trustworthy non-Republican source (with access to actual insider information) that the Dems are getting set to pass "card check" legislation fast next year, right out of the box, assuming Obama wins and the Democrats get their expected big Senate majority. The legislation--which would eliminate the secret ballot in union organizing elections, allowing union organizers to gather signed cards person-to-person--is cheap, in budgetary terms. And it's very, very important to organized labor. ...Obama's political history suggests he's not a "fight the power" kind of guy. He's an "accommodate the power" kind of guy. It's highly plausible that he'd be willing to pay off this debt to Big Labor up front if they push him hard enough. ... Since I think "card check" legislation is a potential near-disaster economically (unions are engines of adversarial bureaucracy and the mainspring of the wage-price spiral) and procedurally (the secret ballot certainly seems like a key way to avoid intimidation) this is not good news. ... P.S.: Would it be a good move for Obama? Bill Clinton got into trouble, right after he took office, when in the middle of a troubled economic situation his first priority seemed to be gays-in-the-military. Obama likewise risks having it look like his first priority isn't helping the average citizen but helping a key Democratic interest group. ... In Clinton's case,, that damaging first impression was maybe unfair (the gays issue just happened fo flare up). In Obama's case it won't be. ...[Thought you were pro-Obama--ed Yes. But I am, as they say, concerned! Not scheduled to enter full pro-Obama BS mode for at least two more weeks.] ... 4:58 P.M.
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Now it can be told: Former LAT employee Tim Cavanaugh on the paper's Edwards coverage:
The L.A. Times desperately wanted to avoid this damaging story, dressed up its desires in media-diligence drag (we were told not to comment until the paper's reporters were through looking into the matter), and as a result was beaten and humiliated in its own backyard.
They even somehow got blogger Andrew Malcolm to claim he was happy to be gagged. ... .12:34 A.M.
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Next stunt, please (cont.)! Another obvious possible McCain stunt: Go back on Letterman. Apologize. Self-deprecate. Hug. Big ratings. .. .10:52 P.M.
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It's hard to stop a gravy train:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the troubled mortgage giants that were recently taken over by the government, are expected to continue donating to charity, the Federal Housing Finance Agency has assured nonprofit groups in the Washington metropolitan area.
Matt Cooper and Michael Kinsley have failed. ... [via NewsAlert ] 8:29 P.M.
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Immigration causes global warming! ... Well, in that case ....7:21 P.M.
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The rich and powerful Getty Museum's idea of "the political fray": a debate between theatrical left-wing artist Robbie Conal and theatrical left-wing columnist Dan Savage! ... And they say the art community is a bunch of theatrical left-wingers talking to each other. ... Take it away, Andrew Breitbart. ...P.S.: Well, they could always discuss Savage's muscular foreign policy vision! ... 7:21 P.M.
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The Surprise October Surprise: The "October Surprise" that might help McCain wouldn't be a new bin Laden tape, or an Al Qaeda attack, but rather a medium-sized setback in Iraq, no? One of McCain's problems is that voters aren't paying much attention to Iraq--because it looks from our distant vantage point like the war is finally on a glide path to an honorable U.S. drawdown of troops. How much damage could Obama do? But if suddenly the near-term outcome in Iraq seems to be in doubt, voters could decide that McCain has shown better judgment on recent strategy in the war. ... Of course, if the U.S. Iraq project suffers a huge setback, McCain's support for the "surge" would look distinctly less prescient. Hence, "medium-sized." ... 3:05 A.M.
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