I Love The Smell Of Desperation In The Morning

 

So Matt Drudge ran a quiet little headline yesterday about a blockbuster video he was going to release on the Hannity show on FOX News. Hannity promo'd it on his website, albeit in a fairly low-key manner.

 

Both, however, called it a game changer.

 

The result? This:

On the eve of the first presidential debate, conservative media outlets seized on footage of a five-year-old speech by then-candidate Barack Obama, who argued at the time that the federal government discriminated against Hurricane Katrina victims.

The June 2007 speech at Hampton University in Virginia was widely covered, as Obama was already well into his presidential campaign. However, the conservative news outlets that pushed the video Tuesday night argued the media skipped over portions of the speech.

Speaking to a largely black audience, Obama in the video made the case that race relations still had a long way to go in the United States, claiming the divide most severely has an impact on impoverished parts of the country.

The 2007 event was not a closed, secret gathering. It was open to the press, and CNN affiliate WAVY filmed the full speech. The crux of his speech was reported by CNN at the time.

This same opening was mirrored in nearly every news organization and on every television news program last night and this morning.

Put it this way: this speech was so pedestrian that even FOX News didn't raise a stink about it when it occured. It's not like Barack Obama wasn't already on the radar, as this is three years after his "there are no red states" speech at the 2004 convention, which catapulted him into the limelight for 2008.

The point he raised at the time, the point conservatives jumped on, was an obscure fact of policy known as the Stafford Act, which says the local and state governments must kick in at least 25% against any Federal monies. This was waived after the 9/11 attacks, as well as Hurricane Andrew, but curiously, not for New Orleans and Louisiana after Katrina.

Nutbag conservatives jumped on this observation as an example of Barack Obama's overt racism. Funny thing about the speech, tho...

Obama described this rejection of New Orleans as "colorblind", a point neither Hannity nor Drudge, nor even Daily Caller's Tucker Carlson made in the release of the tape. Daily Caller was the organization that apparently re-edited the speech to suit conservative purposes.

Here's the thing: if you want to defend the Bush administration handling of Katrina, that's a debate I bet President Obama would re-visit in a heartbeat, as there have been any number of global-warming induced natural disasters on his watch that were handled professionally and promptly. Indeed, I bet he'd make almost the exact same speech today if asked to.

As a side note to Tucker: how racist is it to point out Barack Obama's patois? Is it anymore ridiculous than pointing out that Romney suddenly developed a love of grits when he campaigned in the south?

 

 

Probably Not The Message He Wants To Send

 

Here's the thing: you can criticize President Obama for unemployment. That's a bit unfair but it's a criterion we've held past Presidents to, even if Obama has created more jobs in his first term than were lost during the first months of his term (he's a net job creator, in other words.)

 

To claim some moral authority is a different issue, Mitt. Yes, it would be great if every American had a good paying job, but you raise the question: why did you offshore and outsource so many of them? After all, if the dream you have for America is everyone who wants one can have a job with good wages, then you sort of have to explain why you destroyed so many, don't you?

Keen Tactics

 

There's an interesting analysis in the usually perfunctorial The Atlantic today:

A National Journal analysis of recent polling results across 11 states considered battlegrounds shows that in most of them, Obama is running considerably better than he is nationally among white women without a college education. Obama's gains with these so-called "waitress moms" are especially pronounced in Heartland battlegrounds like Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Combined with his continued support among other elements of his "coalition of the ascendant," including young people, minorities, and college-educated women, these advances among blue-collar women have been enough to propel Obama to the lead over Republican Mitt Romney in the most recent public surveys in all 11 states (albeit in some cases within the polls' margins of error).

Democrats say blue-collar women have been the principal, and most receptive, target for their extended ad barrage portraying Romney as a plutocrat who is blind, if not indifferent, to the struggles of average families.

These "waitress moms" have voted Republican in every election since 1980. Except 1996.

Mitt Romney is the ideal candidate to alienate them completely, if you think about it, and nearly every substantive misstep he's made has alienated them further.

For instance, choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate. Now, normally blue-collar workers believe in balancing the budget. Indeed, it is to them that the whole "sitting at your kitchen table, trying to balance your checkbook" trope is directed ("If you can do it, so should the government," conveniently ignoring the fact that the wife/husband/single parent doesn't have to support corn farmers and oil companies and two wars.)

These are the values voters, the people who believe in Jesus and the Bible and who overlap with people who believe them even more than an addict believes in his next fix.

But Ryan has full-throated talked about cutting Social Security and Medicare: these are the very programs that waitress-moms have been paying into for decades because they have to and because they don't earn enough to sock away in an offshore account for retirement.

Faux pas number two -- if you're running for President for a total of 7 years, you might want to think about cleaning up your ledger a bit. That includes the dancing horse, which oddly does not appear on the 2011 Romney return: Faux pas #3.

But I digress...

When you threaten a person's planning, you can expect blowback. It doesn't matter if you buy the car off the lot they were eyeing (in which case the blowback is as mild as a muttered curse) or take away the tens of thousands of dollars they sock away for 50 years hoping to live off at retirement, there's going to be some reaction.

Many of these waitress moms, most of them actually, make less than the median $50,000 a year for a family of four. That means they struggle, sometimes they need help, or they at least know someone who occasionally needs a hot meal and help paying the heating bill.

You know, the 47%? So that tape did Romney no good with this group, either. It may have been red meat to his constituency, but his other supporters heard that, and I'm thinking a goodly number cemented their opinion of Romney.

That's pretty much four strikes, although Rafalca might be just a foul tip, since many of these moms either have had a horse under them at some point, or have neighbors who own.

 

So no matter what, these voters are lost to Mitt and no amount of "zingers" in the debates is going to turn the tide.

 

Add to that the entire backdrop of Republican attacks on Planned Parenthood and birth control covered by insurance, and women are pretty angry.

 

I can't imagine why they'd take it out on the guy who is most emblematic of their issues.

Mitt Romney: Neanderthal

 

No, really!¹

 

 

¹#notentirelyafactualstatement

Punch-Drunk

It's a given that Arthur "Punch" Sulzberger changed the New York Times and created the Newspaper of Record that we've come to know.

 

It's also a given that his decision to publish The Pentagon Papers was a watershed moment in US press reporting and in journalism. It's also a given that he was late to the boat on Watergate.

 

That he took a local New York City newspaper and made it into a worldwide phenomenon is also indisputable, although one might make the argument that in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, that was likely to happen as the world spotlight centered on the US, and the US was New York City and the other 50 states.

 

He also took his eye off local reporting, in particular local politics, and focused the lens of the paper on national politics. It sold newspapers, to be sure, but also sold the people of NYC up the river. What had been the most reliable source of hard facts about the city had ceded the field to the sensationalist New York Post (then a liberal rag) and the middle-of-the-road New York Daily News.

 

So much so that New Yorkers who could have shaped and influenced the direction of events here knew more about President Ford's plan to "Whip Inflation Now" than about the burgeoning financial crisis. To this day, sweetheart deals for councilmembers and borough presidents get very short shrift (e.g. Christine Quinn profting politically off her wife's legal connections)

 

I blame Watergate, which so galvanized the nation and all but created the Washington Post. That sold papers. That forced Sulzberger to shift his focus. After all, you have 330 million Americans and about 10 million New Yorkers and commuters. Who do you think deserves to be served by a national paper?

 

As it turns out, both. The advent of the internet and 24 hour cable news made the Times almost an irrelevancy. Where it would break roughly a story a month, it now finds itself on the "analysis" end of the story, backending and summarizing where once it would lead things that bled over the paper.

 

Sulzberger was long gone (he left the publisher position in 1992, the board in 1997) when all this transpired, but one wonders if Sulzberger could have been a little more prescient and hired thinkers, rather than the David Brooks and Ross Douthats of the world.

 

Anyway, godspeed, Mr. Sulzberger. You were a giant among giants and for that, you deserve your day in the sun.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) The Communist Party in China has expelled Bo Xilai. Bo maintains a very strong power base in China and the party needed to handle him delicately. You may remember that Bo's wife, Gu Kailai has been implicated in the murder of Neil Heywood, a British businessman. In addition, complaints of rampant sexual harassment and abuse as well as the ubiquitous "corruption" charges were levelled against Bo. Obviously, he had to go and ahead of the party congress on November 8, but the punishment had to be moderated as Bo is the scion Bo Yibo, one of the legendary Eight Elders of the Chinese communist party (Deng Xiaoping was another).

 

2) In other "expelled" news, the Beach Boys have dropped founding members Al Jardine...and Brian Wilson! WTF? This is not unlike The Beatles kicking out George Harrison and John Lennon (either of which would have been a loss, but both?) This is very confusing, and I'm sure this story will develop over time. I have a confession to make: I'm a huge Beach Boys fan, particularly of their early stuff up through the Surf's Up album. So this is like hearing a childhood idol has been arrested for something.

 

3) Your weekly mass killing.

 

4) Here's a SCOTUS case that's sure to cause controversy: Is affirmative action necessary if a) a school choses students based on academics and b) the school is still achieving diversity? Oddly, as an alumnus of a specialized high school grappling with this precise issue, how to achieve diversity in a school that requires standardized testing, this is of particular concern to me.

 

5) I'm thinking that maybe Bill Clinton's next job will be President Emeritus of the planet. There are so many places he could assist in these times of trouble.

 

6) Attention President Obama: this is how you do it.

 

7) Happy birthday, Critical Mass!

 

8) Say goodbye to Olympus cameras. Yes, it's only a small stake, but Sony has its own line of digital cameras and they wouldn't help a rival unless they planned on using them or owning them.

 

9) If you need a feel-good story today to cheer you up, here. His life story will be a movie, albeit made for TV, but it's a terrific story of a pretty great guy making good by doing good and having it all come back to him. I mean, really, how many major league pitchers write children's books or climb Kilimanjaro (both of which he's done)?

 

10) How bad are Mitt Romney's chances? David Brooks has stopped writing about politics.

The Closing Door

Not that I believe Mitt Romney ever stood a chance of beating President Obama, for myriad reasons, but I think you can stick a fork in him right now, and we still have five weeks left.

Despite his protestations to the contrary, Mitt Romney currently appears to be losing the presidential election, and his problems are especially acute in Ohio, the state no Republican has ever won the presidency without. A new New York Times poll Wednesday put Romney a shocking 10 points behind Obama; even the most optimistic Democrats have a hard time believing the president, who won Ohio by less than 5 points in 2008, could win the state by 10 this time around. The most optimistic Republicans, for their part, do not believe any polls at all these days, since, in a highly suspicious coincidence, they are nearly unanimous in showing Romney behind.

Seeing the candidates campaign in the state back-to-back, as I did, neatly illustrated the divergent mood between the two camps -- one flailing, one on a confident roll. The Obama campaign is clicking on all cylinders, consistent, smoothly choreographed and slickly produced; Romney's appearances are a jumble, his tone of voice pleading to the point of desperation, his speech constantly improvised from a Frankenstinian array of spare messaging parts, never quite gelling into a focused whole. Obama's crowds are a Bieber-like fan-throng; Romney's are only passionately angry. A visitor from another planet who didn't speak a word of any human language could tell which one was up and which was down.

Indeed, things are so bleak for Romney that Obama is going to test out a trope that I had hoped would be employed more forcefully earlier: it's unAmerican to support Romney and his off-shoring of money and jobs:

"It's time for a new economic patriotism, rooted in the belief that growing our economy begins with a strong, thriving middle class," Obama says in conclusion." Read my plan. Compare it to Governor Romney's and decide for yourself."

In a nation that is struggling to achieve even a moderate reduction in unemployment numbers, that a whole cadre of wealth remains in offshore bank accounts and investments is treasonous. Obama doesn't come out and say this, but it's in between the lines: a strong, thriving middle class doesn't have access to Bermuda hedge funds, Caymans private equity funds, or Swiss bank accounts, and a weak middle class doubly not.

Romney had seven years, literally, to uncouple himself from those investments (or at least dump them into a blind trust) because he had to know they'd be an issue and defending by saying "you're just jealous" doesn't change the fact that mobsters and other criminals use those same facilities for the same reason: to hide money.

Add to that the very real gaffes Romney commits on a weekly basis, from the primaries all the way to this past week, and you have the makings of a real sewer hole of a campaign.

Indeed, Romney's stench is so palpable, it's even infesting apparent jokes. This is the same benchmark the McCain/Palin campaign breached when Tina Fey satired "I can see Russia from my house!" It wasn't a Palin quote, but it described the situation so accurately that it stuck.

How desperate have things become for Republicans? They've resorted to blaming the pollsters.

Oh yes. It's not that Romney has been a terrible campaigner or that Romney was just a bad choice, no, it's the pollsters who somehow have conspired to show Romney flailing like a Little Leaguer facing CC Sabathia.

Because goodness knows, there's no competition to get it right and earliest! The long term effects of this kind of conspiring would be not only tragic, it would be actionable by any shareholders.

Here we have another example of the Republican anathema to science and mathematics. For the GOP, God's poll tells them otherwise because they pray nightly for a miracle.

I'm afraid that door is closing too. About the only miracle that could possibly save Romney is during the debates, where Barack Obama unmasks as Osama bin Laden. And even then, Romney would still trail by three in Ohio.