Progressive Movement

So all we heard this week were calls for Hillary Clinton to withdrawal. In fact, we have been hearing that for weeks. Sen. Leahy specifically called for it this week. Howard Dean wants the superdelegates to decide their votes by July 1. And so on and so on.

There was been much handwringing over this extended Democratic contest - fears that continued fighting will not give the eventual Democratic nominee enough time to bring the Party together, raise enough money, or go after John McCain. Moreover, they fear that continued attacks by Barack and Hillary against each other, and by their surrogates, will create a negative impression of the Democratic Party and prove that they cannot get it together in order to govern.

All fair concerns. But the answer is not end the race or call for Hillary to quit. I happen to think that when Democrats talk about their issues, people listen. Now with McCain as the Republican nominee, their is no race to report there, so no one cares. The guy went to Iraq and nobody cared. When he went last year and proclaimed, under protection from and entire U.S. company of Marines and helicopter gunships, that markets in Iraq were as safe as those in America, he got all sorts of press. Now he practically has to pay for it.

But Hillary and Barack are getting the almost undivided attention of the press. You cannot pay for this kind of exposure, and the candidates should use it as a opportunity to talk about progressive values, as Barack did in his speech about race about two weeks ago.

When I was on the Kerry campaign, during the height of the Democratic primaries, most of the main Democratic candidates were beating Bush in the polls. Why? Because people were watching the candidate debates and all the media were talking about them.

Same thing here, except with one caveat. (more…)

Elections, Obama, Analysis, Hillary Clinton, primaries | 4 Comments »

Okay, so I was on vacation and did not get to post on the whole Obama flap and speech, Nor the subsequent cluelessness of the media in reacting to Obama’s speech. Thank God the blogs exposed the inanity of the “did Obama do enough to end his preacher controversy” narrative the MSM was trying to push. Never ones to let media stupidity to go unnoticed, The Daily Show got in on the action as well.

While I feel Obama gave a speech that will be remembered for generations, if not centuries, many before me have commented on that issue.

Suffice it to say, Obama took a difficult situation and used it to advance his message. He did not waver or fear the controversy, he embraced it. What better time to talk about bringing America together than in the midst of a controversy over white and black America? Most Democrats would have turned tail and ran – not Obama.

Moreover, he could have counterattacked harshly and dishonestly, in a typical Republican ‘I know you are but what am I?” response, but he chose to take the high ground. So he could have come out swinging, or turned tail and ran, but he ditched both ineffective responses and decided to tackle the issue of race in America head on. And he did it by criticizing both white and black.

That is what makes Obama different, and that is why his message will resonate with more Americans in time. His speech last week is truly a primary example in how to address a controversy. Do not get down in the mud and lose sight of the real prize; instead seize the opportunity to tell your narrative, your story, your vision.

But as I said, others have addressed this more eloquently and more often than I.

What I find most interesting about this latest flap is the pattern that is developing by Obama’s opponents, a pattern readily embraced by the media.

1) They brought up that his middle name was Hussein.
2) They mentioned he grew up in a Muslim country.
3) They fretted over him going to a madrassa, or radical Muslim school, for a year or two.
4) They tried to make a controversy over Michelle Obama saying that her husband’s quest for the White House was the first time she was proud of America.
5) Of course, they spun Obama’s pastor’s remarks about the plight of blacks in America and how our actions brought 9-11 upon us (which they did) as treasonous and then tried to claim Obama’s views were the same as his pastor’s angry remarks.

What does this spell? (more…)

Messaging, Elections, Kerry, media, Obama, Racism, Daily Show, Narratives | 2 Comments »

As NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer has found out the hard way.

Politicians never listen. Leave pimping to the experts. I am sick and tired of having precious news minutes devoted to the latest idiotic dalliances of some politician who should know better. All these pundits have better things to do than waste what few minutes they have on air talking about the fact that you cannot keep it in your pants.

Now all you politicians out there listen up, and listen up good.

You are not rock stars. People may treat you like rock stars, sycophants are all around you, but you are not rock stars.

Groupies, hookers, orgies, all that is cool if you are a rock star. It improves your reputation.

Not so if you are a politician.

In fact, politicians are the opposite of rock stars in this matter. Politicians cannot get laid. Ever.

You have a choice: get laid or be a politician. You cannot do both. They are mutually exclusive. If you want to be a politician, fine, just realize you can never get laid outside the confines of marraige, and even then that is tricky; be extra careful no one finds out you have sex with your spouse or you will have a scandal on your hands.

Is this fair? No. But it is the way it is.

Do not think this unwritten rule does not apply to you. It does.

So get it through your head. No stained blue dresses, no texting naughty messages to underage pages, no paying the DC Madam to let you wear diapers for your infantilism fetish, no sleeping with another woman when your wife is on her deathbed, no transporting escorts across state lines, or no foot tapping in the men’s stall at the airport. Nope, none o’ that.

The public does not pay you to get some action. They pay for you to act saintly and pass legislation. So get to work and get that sex stuff out of your mind for good. Quite sicking your junk where the public does not want you to stick it.

Politician = no sex. Deal with it.

You are not rock stars.

Uncategorized, privacy | 4 Comments »

The race for PA is on, with Barack winning Mississippi, although not by the margins hoped for. Still, 60% not bad. For him, he has to hold Clinton close in PA, but beat her in at least one of the other three states she is expected to win, IN, WV, or KY. If he does that she will be in trouble. But, if he beats her in PA, it is all over.

On the subject of Obama hitting Clinton on the experience claim she is making, here is this. More of this is needed from Obama, at least for a few weeks. Once some ot the damage has been done to her hyperbolic claim that she has all this Commander in Chief type experience, he should back off and continue being Obama. But in the meantime, his advisers must think like me since they are doing exactly what they should, go after Hillary’s strength.

Messaging, Elections, Obama, Analysis, Hillary Clinton, primaries | No Comments »

Check this out.

Wow, the longest serving Republican Speaker of the House’s old district goes to a Democrat? Now I know March is not the same as November, but the Republican Party spent twice as much defending this seat as the Democrats did attacking it. And they still lost? In Ronald Reagan’s boyhood home?!

I have family in this district. I have been there quite a few times. It is pretty Republican. My mother always joked that they thought ‘Democrat’ was a dirty word. Her family was very unsure about her marrying a Democrat, much less an Irish-Catholic, union member Yankee. This result floors me.

And Dr. Foster won by 6 points. Crazy.

Sign ‘o the Times? Too early to tell, but if the economy gets worse, and we still are hanging around Iraq (which we will be), I expect we will see more safe Republican districts go blue. Certainly does not help the Republicans, already strapped for cash, to outspend the Dems in a safe red seat and lose.

Elections, Analysis | 1 Comment »

Alright, it has been five days since the big Tuesday elections in Ohio, Texas, Vermont, and Rhode Island and I have yet to write something about it.

Rather than parse out specifics on how Hillary or Obama can get enough delegates or not before the convention, whether to seat Michigan’s and Florida’s delegates, etc…once again I want to focus on message.

Hillary launched the now infamous “3am ad”, a copy of a McCain ad from this year, which is a copy of a Mondale ad from ’84. This ad does specifically what I have been saying she needed to do in order to overcome the narrative Obama has created.

Experience is the antithesis of change according to the Obama principle. Thus, arguing you have more experience simply states you are not the agent of change. That is why Clinton was losing.

Moreover, the attraction to the notion that outsiders who do not know what they are doing are the ones who can change Washington is not one grounded in much logic. It is an emotional appeal that may or may not be true. There is no real logical, rational reason to believe this other than the fact that the experienced ones we keep electing keep screwing things up.

It is a gamble in other words. And gamblin’ ain’t firmly grounded in logic or reason.

That being the case, Clinton’s appeal to the logic that she is better qualified falls on many a deaf ear. So how did she get around this obstacle?

Like I suggested, she needed to undercut the entire concept that experience was the problem. In other words, show why experience is good – and do it by appealing to emotion.

Remember, opinions created by something other than reason cannot be replaced by reason, but only by (more…)

Messaging, Elections, Obama, Hillary Clinton, primaries, MSNBC, experience frame | No Comments »

Karl Rove raised the spectre of Al-Qaeda taking over Iraq this morning on FoxNews. Just like John McCain has continually done the last few weeks. The Republicans know they have to get their noise machine working full speed on Iraq now, raising the spectre of the Al-Qaeda bogeyman, if they want to neutralize the issue come November. This will work a little, but it is too much of a broken record for many people to believe it. Stll, if they can sway enough people to vote through fear rather than reason, they might be able to almost negate the Dems’ advantage in this area.

Too bad the economy is going the sink them regardless, but if you listen to Mary Matalin(which I do not), the economy is fine, the media just convinces everyone that it is bad. So I guess that means we should blame the media because the price of oil just went to $103/barrel or the when the bank forecloses on our home.

Messaging, media, Economy, Karl Rove | No Comments »

More of the same from Hillary. She has experience and is a fighter. At the beginning of the speech she almost heads down the path she needs to by asking the crowd to look on this as hiring for a job, but then falls back into the tired old refrains. This does not alter the narrative Obama has set regarding change and experience being a hindrance for that.

At this rate, she will not be able to overcome the liberal evangelism of Obama.

But she is leading in Ohio, and likely will win the state. So that may give her enough life to survive through Pennsylvania.

Messaging, Hillary Clinton | No Comments »