New Year, New Blog

Surf over to: http://ahabswhale.blogspot.com Adjust bookmarks accordingly. -Tim and James

Googlezon v. The New York Times

If you have a spare 8 minutes and audio availability, check out this futuristic look at media history from 2014 and the introduction of EPIC - the "Evolving Personalized Information Construct". Very, very cool. One captivating statement on where blogging fits in the upcoming media revolution. No time or desire to make much of an insightful commentary at the moment - but consider it a solid topic for reflection and fortune telling over a few pints. The seismic shift will arrive sooner than expected, and it should be nothing short of massive. [NOTE: I found this flash presentation in a roundabout manner that is worth mentioning - One of Sullivan's guest bloggers pointed me to a post trashing their contributions. That post, which contains a random link to a "terrifying, Google-controlled future" is here. So thanks go out to killerboots.blogspot and its author Tom Berman - though I have to agree with Ross that the posted photo is indeed egregiously faux-intellectual...] UPDATE - Here one of the EPIC co-authors comments on the speed with which the program is making its rounds. Fascinating - and check out the technorati site, a search engine through recent blog entries.

So Long, Farewell...

...(almost) to 2004. As anyone that has popped by here recently is no doubt aware, holiday blogging doesn't seem to be our thing. So here is a pre-emptive au revoir to one of my favorite years of all time - from New Year spectacularity at the Domus through to working for Dean in NH, a weeklong trip to Ottawa in March, Graduation from Law School, the Rockies, the Pacific (ah Tofino!), immigration hassles, the sunny beaches of Lagos, the lighthouse at Cabo Sao Vincente, greeting Lance Armstrong and Tom Boonen on the Champs, Berlin with Carter and Schadendorf, a month in Munchen with the Suckling Pig at Hofbrau, UN tour in Geneva, Don Giovanni in Vienna, 2 days and 2 nights of Oktoberfest, then the opening Michaelmas semester at Oxford. Cannot forget about a quick jaunt to Dublin to see my mother and 10,000 others run the marathon, or participating in another TFI marathon with DJ Phil in Glasgow, and renewing a November tradition with Gartner on Arthur's Seat and later at the World's End in Edinburgh. Also fortunate enough to skip through Toronto and Halifax on the way back to Moncton, bumping into old friends all along the way for some final classic extravaganzas. A magnificent year, but as the song goes: "regretfully they tell us, but firmly they compel us, to say goodnight to you." But fear not, for the sun will rise on a new year. 2005 has a tough act to follow. So the question is: where will it begin? How about over on Prince Edward's fair Island? Jimmy Swift and Grand Theft Bus are playing Myron's in Charlottetown, and the Connolly sisters promise a riotous evening without any pesky secret service agents that would hover in the background in Crawford. It seems worthy enough. Anyway, rest assured that we'll be back on Jan One with some eclectic New Year resolutions just waiting to be broken (x # of posts per week, etc...) All the best of the season to one and all.

What are you going to do with that Degree?

So once you have photocopied your various diplomas for petty Masters applications, your parents inevitably end up framing them and the question becomes where to put the beasts... clutter up a future office with your undergrad BA? Hardly. Last night back in Halifax at Pogue Fado, listening to the incomparable Rob Cook, I noticed for the first time that one of the bar's proprieters has hung his Physics degree in the Men's toilet. Outstanding. And hope for us all, that we might get to use our degrees to such a purpose.

Of Referenda and Free Votes

The big Canadian news that accompanied my return to Canada, along with the latest offer by the NHLPA, was the Supreme Court's deft judgment on the issue of Same-Sex marriage. An unsurprising decision, but also one that shows the Court's acute awareness of the political implications of its actions. It still seems as though the deal is sealed, and yet you have Opposition Leader Stephen Harper claiming a tremendous victory for those who wanted Parliament to be at the center of the decision. So now as we wait for the legislation and the vote, I would like to register one complaint. It is hearthening to see the Prime Minister rule out the possibility of a divisive and unproductive/time-consuming national referendum, and I am also pleased that it will be a free vote for Backbench Liberals and Parliamentary Secretaries. Under such circumstances, proponents of same-sex marriage have nothing to fear from a vote, as it is likely to pass comfortably by a margin of 20-25. So why must Paul "Democratic Deficit" Martin insist that the 38 members of Cabinet toe the line? There is hardly a danger of the Bill losing - with only 1 or 2 Ministers prone to vote against the measure. The issue itself is one that has long been regarded as one of "conscience" that arises most rarely. Why give the opposition something so easy to latch on to, I wonder? My Canadian political history is not what it should be, so perhaps Martin has his reasons for whipping the Cabinet. But I remain unconvinced. Let the free vote be truly free on the day of this historic victory for minority rights in Canada.

Back 2 Politics

Blogging on the road can be difficult for new converts to the trade, especially when deprived of a regular routine and adequate sleep... and so at such times the chaotic events of the ongoing revels overshadow daily political developments. Who knows whether people find my political musings more interesting than the madness of late-night adventures (what makes you think people are interested in either? -ed.) but in any case, it is time to return to politics and two commentaries on some ongoing developments from the past week. 1. Kerik, Lieberman, and Pataki - check out kos' thoughts on Lieberman returning to frontrunner status for Homeland Security. I agree that, according to these reasons, it seems a no-brainer. The only explanation for hesitancy on Bush's part? It must be loyalty speaking again - and the opportunity to reward a friend/colleague into the post that never spoke out against the administration. The appointment would certainly hurt the Democrats, so the news from Drudge that Pataki is working behind the scenes is welcome. As for Kerik, Kausfiles has a classic piece on the rise of the "magic nanny excuse" for withdrawn appointees (scroll down, although not before reading his pithy commentary on social security at the top of the post). You really have to love blogs for the ability to crib essentially what you wish to say without having to take the time to write it yourself... 2. Beinhart, Drum, and Goldberg - and of course I mean Jonah Goldberg of the National Review, and not Greg Goldberg, the famed goaltender of the Mighty Duck movies and #94 on someone's random yet hilarious list of the 100 Greatest Characters of Film. (visiters to the last link will take especial delight in the fact that Stanley Spadowski is listed at #82, Marty McFly at #59, Inigo Montoya at #20... you get the idea) Sullivan linked to this article by Jonah on the supposed "softness" of the Democrats on Terror, calling it a home-run for pointing out that major Democratic thinkers such as Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum still aren't pursuaded that the Jihadist threat is real and continuing. Now the article speaks for itself, as does the piece by Beinhart that has provoked the much-needed debate on the Left on the ability of Democrats to engage in this fight. If Tim is not just busy repairing broken windows or sending his resumes off to the Ukraine but instead simply awaiting some subject matter on which to blog, I would love to hear a separate review from his perspective. I would just like to deal with a narrower point. What Goldberg seems to be arguing (and Sullivan applauding) is that the time for debate on the very deadly seriousness of the "War on Terror" is itself the sign and symbol of liberal weakness. It harkens back to the "either with us or against us" rhetoric that simplifies the utter complexity of both the challenge and the enemy. Where the tragic death of one Dutch artist can only properly be regarded as a seismic earthquake of World War IV. Surely we can be tough on terror without favouring the complete overthrow of governments in the Middle East, the lawless detentions, the prisoner abuses... surely there are answers and responses that lie between the chasm of Michael Moore and George Bush. Absolutely the threat is "real and continuing" - does Drum ever really dispute it - but in comparison to what? There has to be a difference between real threats and overwhelming ones that is more than semantic. Maybe Team America is Sullivan's "best" movie of the year because he likes the absolutist terms that Spottswood's army uses to deal with terrorists? I think we can and should be able to discuss whether this threat is truly "overwhelming". Is it something that we need to wake up worrying about everyday? Does it mean our attention and resources must be marginalized when it comes to India-Pakistan and China-Taiwan disputes, or unrest in Africa and Central America? I think my frustration lies mainly in the following. Goldberg concludes:

"This is more than an academic point: "Sure, 9/11 was a wakeup call," Drum writes, but since we haven't been attacked as badly at home since, there's no reason to conclude that 9/11 was our generation's Pearl Harbor. In other words, if Bush hadn't done as good a job fighting the war on terrorism, Drum might be more convinced that the war on terrorism is worth fighting. Forgive me for ever thinking liberals couldn't be tough on the war on terror."

It cannot be as simple as that, can it? Goldberg's logic implies that no terrorist attacks are solely attributed to the success of Bush's superb job in fighting the war on terror, and that any attack is merely confirmation of the overwhelming threat we will continue to face. Sounds a lot like perpetual war to me, since how would we ever know when the threat has subsided? Forgive me for ever thinking that the extent of the Jihadist threat fluctuates over time, relative to other threats facing the security of the West. Not that I am calling on them to be colour-coded or anything. Just a simple recognition that it ebbs and flows and is not all-consuming would be nice.

Texas Dolly

So inevitably I end up at the poker tables of the Halifax Casino after the firm party - about 4AM, breaking all the rules about being too drunk to play correctly. The luck from the MacDuff bowtie proved fleeting, though I had such great opening hands I couldn't fold before the flop. Anyway, playing along as conservatively as I can, won only one hand all night with an Ace-Ten suited - early raise pays off into a straight ten-high, thanks to a fortuitous turn. But I couldn't hold it, losing my most sizable chunk on the infamous Doyle Brunson hand: Ace-Queen offsuit. Limped into the pot, flopped Queen-junk-junk, raise, get re-raised, turn is junk so I raise again only to get re-raised... at this point the others drop out and only then do I start thinking about the hands that have me beat. But my problem is the classic probability problem. The only guy remaining in the pot has won the last 3 hands on superior opening hands (If heads comes up 3 times in a row, it must be time to bet tails?) The hand before he made a miraculous pull with a pair of Jacks in the hole and a Jack on the river. Could he really be sitting there with Aces? No way, I think. The only hand he could have that kills me are the pocket Kings, and even then I still have the river for the Ace to top out. It is one of the things about games that are not no-limit. Tough to get guys out of the pot, but in this case also tough to fold the last $20 when by all rights you have a played a decent hand and may not see good cards for awhile. And so the inevitable followed... The river is junk, he bets and I call. "You've got pocket Kings, I assume" say I to the guy hiding behind a humongous stack of chips. "Well, if you already knew my hand, why did you pay to see it?" he responds. Should have listened to Doyle, but the inherent beauty and mystery of the game live on, and maybe it was worth 40 pounds - play 10-2 but not Ace-Queen? Well here is just some more anecdotal evidence to justify the hilarity. Especially since staring down at the 5 cards on the board after I have lost most of my stack, and cursing the old Texas Dolly, I cannot help but notice that the river was a deuce, and the turn was a 10. Too damn funny.

Bohemian Genius

And no, that title does not refer to myself - but to Amedeo Modigliani. For anyone interested and in Toronto, rush down to this exhibit, pay the exorbitant $15 and the extra $2 for the audio guide, and check out the paintings. Magical. Hilariously, I have a picture of the guy hanging on my room door at Oxford and didn't even make the connection until arriving at the AGO this morning with tea from Chinatown in hand. Some truly magical quotes all around, but my favorite has to be the following: "I do not seek the real or the unreal, but only the subconscious - the mystery of instinct inherent in human beings." He also wrote some poems that have been lost, but a few fragments remain. One refers to a man in tears because he couldn't reach the stars. A truly magical (and fellow) Kerouacian, checking out his art is certainly worth your time. I especially loved the references to his relationship with a "confident, strident" Picasso. Apparently Pablo had 2 Modigliani pieces in his possession - and thought so much of his friend that he painted over one of them himself. Quickly redeeming himself for posterity, he commented: "It was the only crime I ever committed.

Uncle Leo?

Positively Niagra Street And so many poker analogies come to mind... chasing flushes and straights and Russian and Italian Oxford girls down the river; wired pairs of Vodka-Red Bull inspiring misplaced senses of destiny that morph into color-coded, felt-tipped marker induced lines, written as it is in a beat-poetry style flat of Bourbon St. signs and multiple Marilyn posters. Complete with deja vu all over again sentiments, of course... Yet these are but wild and whirling words, my lord... therefore as a stranger on the couch of the ancient and complex Niagra pad we must give them welcome, Horatio. It is a fair distance from the misty mountain tops to such an apartment and the incomprehensibility of emotional attachments. If the descent Eliot was attempting to describe belonged to the cynic, even despite his lyricism I cannot buy it, as rhetorically grand as the questions might be. For even in the depths of ridiculousness, how to explain finding yourself here at 10:19AM - of all places - without waxing quickly into some type of majestic ode to the power of randomness, spontaneity, and friendship. Fill the verse with those incomprehensible human elements of envy without enviousness (?) over grand ideas who personify themselves as people, and ramble on inexplicably over mysterious longing for appreciation and love and art and hilarity all at once, with romantic compulsions brought out through multiplicitous, addictive beverages... Oh there are more things in heaven and earth then are dreamt of in such philosophy! And to quote Eliot at his true finest - It is impossible to say just what I mean - As if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen... And so leave it at that, with hopes for Sweet Child of Mine kareoke this evening, and a final resolution to the secret broken window. As the madness continues...

Positively Niagra Street

And so many poker analogies come to mind... chasing flushes and straights and Russian and Italian Oxford girls down the river; wired pairs of Vodka-Red Bull inspiring misplaced senses of destiny that morph into color-coded, felt-tipped marker induced lines, written as it is in a beat-poetry style flat of Bourbon St. signs and multiple Marilyn posters. Complete with deja vu all over again sentiments, of course... Yet these are but wild and whirling words, my lord... therefore as a stranger on the couch of the ancient and complex Niagra pad we must give them welcome, Horatio. It is a fair distance from the misty mountain tops to such an apartment and the incomprehensibility of emotional attachments. If the descent Eliot was attempting to describe belonged to the cynic, even despite his lyricism I cannot buy it, as rhetorically grand as the questions might be. For even in the depths of ridiculousness, how to explain finding yourself here at 10:19AM - of all places - without waxing quickly into some type of majestic ode to the power of randomness, spontaneity, and friendship. Fill the verse with those incomprehensible human elements of envy without enviousness (?) over grand ideas who personify themselves as people, and ramble on inexplicably over mysterious longing for appreciation and love and art and hilarity all at once, with romantic compulsions brought out through multiplicitous, addictive beverages... Oh there are more things in heaven and earth then are dreamt of in such philosophy! And to quote Eliot at his true finest - It is impossible to say just what I mean - As if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen... And so leave it at that, with hopes for Sweet Child of Mine kareoke this evening, and a final resolution to the secret broken window. As the madness continues...

Out of Time

Okay, only a few minutes remaining and Gatorade beckons. Suffice it to say that I have much to say about page A18 of the Comment section, 3 articles from David Frum (on Martin renewing the ties to the US); David Asper (on Harper's recent complaint to the National Post editorial board); and Anne Kingston (on a supposed double-standard favoring the "insanity" of women in homicide cases). They are articles more worthy of dialogue and debate than an actual blogging commentary, I think, especially given the declining minutes available on the bottom right of the screen. They are great fodder for debate though - how Conservative is the National Post? Aspers comments are surprisingly revealing, even in his attempt to show no bias. How does Martin view relations with the US? Frum refers to the Chretien government's "supreme vice" as the unwillingness to think seriously about military power, which I and Paul Kennedy would likely agree upon - though the rest of his analysis is tainted with a desire to see Martin align with the tendencies of the superbly rightish Bush. As for Kingston, it is an article that would rightly be called "rubbish" in England. But as I am out of time... let's just say it isn't worth much discussion, though it does raise a point worth considering (and rebutting). Off to grab the Gatorade. I would love to see one of the Sports drinks run an advertisement starring a hungover student - who is helped through a rough morning by its lovely liquid...

The Big M

And old Maple Leaf fans will know I am not talking about McDonald's. You can say a lot about the Senate, mostly negative stuff that I will agree with... but I am fond of any institution that is home to one of hockey's magicians. On the back page of today's Post sports section runs a column entitled "A Taste of Greatness" by Wayne Scanlan. I ask forgiveness from the author from quoting verbatim the opening to his column, that resonates with any sportsfan and almost brought a tear to my hungover eye over coke and fish & chips at lunch today. Back when athletes were heroes:

Frank Mahovlich is a child of 19. So young, that he sitll has water from Timmins behind his ears. Howie Meeker is coaching the 1956-57 Toronto Maple Leafs, and he fills those eager Mahovlich ears with this single instruction before the Big M skates onto the ice for his first NHL game. "Don't let Rocket loose," Howie says. The Rocket, of course, was Richard. Number 9 of the Montreal Canadians. Tough. Mean. Black eyes of coal that could bore a hole through wood or cast iron, let alone the fluttering heart of this child from Northern Ontario. His first shift agains Richard, playing right wing to Frank's left, Mahovlich sees the great Habs defencemen, Doug Harvey, rush from his blue line and deliver a slick pass to the Rocket. Uh-oh. He has the puck already. Mahovlich still has the coach's instructions ringing in his mind. "Don't let him loose." So the big lad from Timmins wraps one arm around Richard and then the other, practically has him in a bear hug when the Rocket glares at him with those burning eyes and barks: "Let go, kid." "Now I'm thinking," Mahovlich says, "who do I listen to: Howie Meeker or Rocket Richard?" The answer will seem as simple to you as it did to the then 19-year-old rook. "Yes, Mr. Richard," Mahovlich said, realeasing his clutch of the Rocket. "At least," Senator Frank W. Mahovlich says today, "I distracted him and he lost his focus for a moment."

"Bonds, Rose Riddle Looms"

Tim mentioned the steriods scandal a few days back, which always immediately conjures up images of Kevin Nealon reporting for SNL's weekend update on the "All-Drug Olympics" and weightlifter (the late great Phil Hartman) who pulls his arms completely off in an attempt to break the record. Who can forget Nealon reporting back in after the affair: "Well, that's got to be disappointing for the Big Russian..." In any case, with the baseball hall of fame voting set to begin for the new year - and such greats as Sandberg, Mattingly, Dawson, Goose Gossage, Wade Boggs and even Jim Abbott on the ballot (we are getting old) - Berine Lincicome has a great article on the fallout from the doping epidemic. Some great quotes:

"The charm and bait of baseball is that we forgive everything (the Black Sox, the DH, the drug-plagued 70's, the labour disputes, the skipped World Series of '94, the overripe celebrations of the Red Sox), but this will take awhile to excuse." "While we are at it, how seedy seems the summer of '98, when we all fell in love with baseball again." "If we throw out Bonds, we throw out the last 10 years. And maybe we should."

The article focuses most explicitly on what to do about the ancient records exceeded by McGuire, Bonds, Sosa, etc... But my instinct tells me that the ancient numbers of 61 and 755 will never be forgotten, no matter how the ball gets juiced, the pitching mediocre, the stadiums smaller. Runs that are earned - sacrificed bunts, stolen bases, hitting to the opposite field - these are the charms of baseball, and sadly one of the reasons that I have fallen out of love with the game that, in the playoffs, I used to tape at night and then wake up early in the morning before Junior High to watch the heroics of guys like Francisco Cabrera in the bottom of the 9th against Pittsburgh. It also begins with a tantalizing parallel, that might best summarize the argument (which I agree with whole-heartedly) that Pete Rose belongs in Cooperstown:

"Debate gurgles already about Barry Bonds and the Hall of Fame, as if the future honour would certify Bonds' deceit, as such a thing would endorse Pete Rose's gambling... What I say about these parallel conundrums is that Rose never got a base hit because he was betting he would."

Charlie Hustle played the game as hard (mostly harder) as anyone. He belongs in the Hall, and the ongoing saga of the game proves it with each passing day.

Subscriber Exclusives?

So, to get on with the point, I grabbed the National Post for 75 cents on the way to lunch today. First time reading it since my mother imported a copy to Dublin, and I have to say it does serve to provoke debate. But it also has some classic sportswriters. Sad that both it and the Globe and Mail have failed to allow cheap foreign students access to its articles without purchasing a subscription. If the kos readers can find the script to cheat the internet vote, perhaps they have the code-words I need to crack into their perishable news product. Or as soon as we start hauling in the blogads, we should consider an Ahabs debit account to be used for such nonsense. But, of course, I digress. So I will get on with some sports articles and quotes first, then some fisking of a few articles from their editorial page. Some articles will be hyperlinked where available. Others, sadly, can only be viewed through my jaded prism, unless you happily have procured a copy of the Tuesday, December 7, 2004 version of the Post. Snowing Yesterday. Raining Today. Not in the Maritimes yet, but the weather makes it seem so. And it makes me smile...

What's Past is Prologue

An slight introduction (and explanation?) to the many (national) posts to follow. This should probably lead them off at the top, but the timeline chronology dictates that it fall below. So while Tim contemplates a nap, I sit here near the beginning of the longest street in Canada, for 3 bucks an hour, resting the hangover and dreaming of the declaration, shattered glass, the one random glove found in the Eaton's Center, and why I have just returned from England only to find myself drinking in Toronto's (1) duke of devon, (2) the irish embassy, (3) duke of richmond, and later, (4) duke of argyle. Only two days in to the Canadian return, at that. I take inspiration and experience from Odysseus who shouted to his temptress amidst the long return home:

"My lady goddess, I beg you not to resent my feeling. I too know well enough that my wise Penelope's looks and stature are insignificant compared with yours. For she is mortal, while you have immortality and unfading youth. Nevertheless I long to reach my home and see the happy day of my return. It is my never-failing wish. And what if the powers above doe wreck me out on the wine-dark sea? I have a heart that is inured to suffering and I shall steel it to endure that too. For in my day I have had many bitter and shattering experiences in war and on the stormy seas. So let this new disaster come. It only makes one more."

And a guy at the desk beside just asked if he could both send and receive emails in this computer lab... I thought explaining the concept of blogging was difficult. Nice to be ahead of the curve.

Read my lips

In his noble (if quixotic) quest to reform the U.S. tax code, President Bush has run across problem number one: at a point, cutting some taxes requires increasing others. The LA Times reports that one tax reform proposal would eliminate the federal deduction for state and local taxes. This would be a tax increase, plain and simple.

Although the proposal would hurt some taxpayers in nearly every state, it would hit hardest in states with higher-than-average income levels and bigger-than-average state and local tax burdens. High on the list are a number of blue states — those that were carried by Democrat Sen. John F. Kerry in last month's presidential election. Taxpayers in California and New York, for example, which have top state income tax rates of 9.3% and 6.5% respectively, would be highly affected; residents of Florida and Texas, which have no state income taxes, much less so.

With that in mind, is this proposal political? This quote is not encouraging:

Supporters of the change insist the disproportionate effect on blue states is a coincidence, but they acknowledge that the proposal could hurt most in states that voted against Bush. "Let me put it like this: It certainly isn't something that's a discouragement," said one prominent conservative. "Yes, we talked about this. The fact that it hits blue states is not something that's been missed among Republicans."

If this proposal is being seriously floated, there is going to have to be some quid pro quo for taxpayers in the states most affected, perhaps by abolishing the Alternative Minimum Tax. Even so, it will be difficult to justify this measure to the states most affected; the article notes that "California taxpayers...already pay $58 billion a year more to the federal government than they get back in services." Tax reform is a worthwhile endeavor, but I can't imagine this lead turkey of a proposal will fly. If it does, there are going to be a lot of pissed off blue staters. Justly so.

Slow news day

Uh...does this really merit coverage by a major news organization? UPDATE: Glad I'm not the only one disgusted by this abysmal lack of journalistic standards. It reminds me of those stories in the Arab News when they'd run a front page story if King Fahd got a haircut or something.

My Goodness...

Finally, David Brooks and I are in complete agreement: a Guinness in a Dublin pub is a beautiful thing. And he's even successfully self-deprecating: "This was the first time in my life I heard a person in a pub talking about benefit index formulas, so it was an important milestone on my descent into pathetic wonkery." (He obviously has not hung out at LSE's premier drinking establishment, the Three Tuns.) In addition to making me thirsty, Brooks gives me a convenient excuse to let the uninitiated know why this blog is so named. No more blogging for the day. I'm headed to the pub for the perfect pint.

The Time Has Come

1991. Game 6. Twins-Braves:

"Facing elimination, Kirby Puckett addressed his teammates in the clubhouse before the game. He told everyone to jump on his back and he would carry them to victory. Then Puckett made good on his promise. He went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and three RBIs while making two of the series' signature plays. First, Puckett made a leaping catch on Ron Gant's deep drive at the plexiglass fence in left-center field, robbing an extra-base hit and killing a third-inning rally. Then in the bottom of the 11th inning off Charlie Leibrandt, it was Puckett's home run to left-center field that gave Minnesota a thrilling 4-3 win and forced Game 7... The homer is so revered in Twins folklore that the seat in the Metrodome where the ball landed was painted gold and remains that way to this day."

The Twins went on to win the series in a thrilling 10th inning game. But that Kirby Puckett performance in Game 6, in one of the greatest World Series of all time, culminated in that home-run moment. It is the true stuff of legend, ranking as #2 on the ESPN Reader list of Greatest World Series Moments (Kirk Gibson's hobbling Grand Slam in 1988 can never be topped). And in perhaps one of the finest examples of a sporting moment really immortalized by the broadcaster's call, it also gave us the late great Jack Buck's famous goosebump inducing simplicity: "There's a drive into deep left field ... and... WE'LL SEE YOU... TOMORROW NIGHT." So to Pearson, Coop: Terminal 3, 7:35PM, flight 711. Send an email with your address and phone number in case something should happen. Tomorrow Night Indeed.

Say it Taint So

Nobody should be shocked by the revelation that baseball superstars Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds took steroids. Ex-major leaguers Jose Canseco and Ken Caminiti, superstars in their day, admitted long ago they used performance-enhancing drugs, and Giambi's teammate on the Yankees, Gary Sheffield, admitted to using a steroid cream two years ago (unknowingly, he claims). On a more subjective level, look at Giambi before and after the period he used steroids, and look at the way Barry's bulked up over the last five or six years. Plain as day. Giambi apparently revealed in his court testimony that he injected steroids and human growth hormone into his stomach and buttocks. Think that's painful? Well, after signing a $120 million contract with the Yanks, he developed tendinitis in his patella, a rare stomach ailment, and a benign tumor in his pituitary gland: all clear symptoms, doctors say, of steroid use. He then lied about it, even after he withered away in the last offseason when he went off the juice. (Bonds claims he was unaware the cream his trainer gave him contained performance enhancers. We may never know.) There will be much fallout from these revelations. One situation to keep your eye on is the Yankees' effort to void the remainder of Giambi's guaranteed contract, worth over $80 million. ESPN's Jayson Stark reports that the Yankees could nullify the rest of the contract for, among other reasons, Giambi's failure to comply with the club's training policy and not keeping himself in "first-class physical condition." There are some clauses in the basic agreement (see Stark's report above) that make it difficult for the Yankees to get out of the contract, and in any case you can be sure the players' union will do everything in its power to make sure Giambi keeps his deal. But the union should allow the Yankees to nullify the contract. The first consideration is public relations: the public is going to be furious if the union protects the ill-gotten contracts of known dopers and liars. Yankees' fans are already pissed. (And how about this opening line in the NY Daily News: "Shrunken slugger Jason Giambi was exposed yesterday as a steroid-using liar who betrayed the Yankees and all baseball fans.") The second is the potential market fallout. In the short term, canceling Giambi's deal would set the precedent for nullifying the contracts of any players who use performance enhancers -- a situation the union can't find desirable. But the medium-to-long consequence could be even farther reaching: free agent sluggers might have to begin accepting discounted contract offers because of the inherent risk teams confront in signing players from a tainted pool. Clubs recently have had difficulty signing free agents with injuries like back problems because no insurance company in its right mind will insure them. I wouldn't be surprised to see insurance companies greatly raise premiums in the wake of BALCO-gate. If the steroid problem is not corraled, in the long run, non-doping super-sluggers' salaries might sag. The third and most important reason is that steroid use is, ultimately, a life and limb proposition. As much as the modern athlete worships money and glory, there are many aspirants in the minors, college and high school who will never attain the heights of Bonds and Giambi. The perceived tradeoff is potential fame, money and success on the one hand, and serious health problems on the other. By maintaining his deal, the message Giambi sends to the next generation of players is: dope up, dominate for a few seasons, hide the 'roid use, sign that big contract, and let the chips fall where they may. Allowing the Yankees to void the contract creates some deterrent to steroid use beyond the shame associated with it. And the union fighting to maintain that contract would implicitly condone the use of steroids. Tarnished home run records are one thing; a human being's health, and perhaps life, are quite another. Ask Ken Caminiti, who after a steroid-filled career killed himself a few months ago. Heck, ask Giambi, who has already had his share of health problems. The players' union should recognize that some things are more valuable than guaranteed multimillion dollar contracts.

Cool to dislike the US? Survey says...

Just read the results of a nifty survey (PDF) conducted last week in advance of Bush's visit. The results are not shocking to me, but they do bolster my confidence that on a person-to-person level, Canada and the US remain close -- no matter how much this White House is hated. (Thanks to Blair Stransky at GPC for pointing out his firm's study.) The highlights, from the press release: · 71% identify the United States as Canada’s closest friend ; · 67% agree that anti-American statements hurt our ability to resolve disputes with the Americans; · 73% believe opposing the policies of President Bush is not the same as being anti- American; · Notwithstanding recent trade disputes and media attention, a full 60% of Canadians say they have positive feelings about the U.S., with another 25% citing “somewhat positive” feelings · Only 15% - or roughly 1/10 Canadians cite negative attitudes towards the U.S. · 37% of Canadians aged 18-35 believe “it’s cool these days to dislike Americans.” Check out the full study here.* A few more interesting findings. “"Which one of the following do you believe is the most important reason that Canadians and Americans are not close: trade and economic relations, culture and language, shared values, and defence and foreign policy?”" Surprise: "Defence and Foreign Policy" -- read, Iraq -- with 39 percent; followed by "Trade and Economic Relations" at 28 percent and Shared Values" at 22 percent. (There's that "values" word again.) A full 2/3 of Canadians disagreed with the statement, “"It’'s cool these days to dislike Americans.”" Less than 1/3 agreed with the statement (28%). And finally, the classic Canadian insecurity complex, put statistically. I think it assumes Americans have actually given some thought to Canada in the last three years outside of the realm of prescription drugs and flu shots:

Notwithstanding almost 2/3 of Canadians feeling positively about the U.S., opinion is equally divided on how they believe Americans view Canada. In response to the question, “Overall, thinking about American views of Canada, how positive would you say their feelings are?”, only one in three (33%) Canadians believes that American feelings toward Canada are “positive” (that is, 6 to 10 on a scale from 0 to 10) while another third (33%) believes that they are “not positive” (0 to 4 on a scale from 0 to 10)

* For the pleasure of the stat wonks: "The survey, conducted among a representative sample of 1,000 adults across Canada on November 23 and 24, 2004 has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

NHL Lockout 101

In time for my return, it seems that the NHLPA has a new proposal to present to the owners next week. I had an opportunity to do some work involving the NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement during my final year of law school, and it proved to be fascinating. The document itself is complex, and it was fascinating to examine the explicit rules on the rights of draft picks and free agents. A very legal business indeed. So aside from the obvious interest in having the players return to the rinks and avoid a year in which the Stanley Cup remains on the shelf, I am also quite excited to examine any new deal for the differences. Hopefully I will be able to post thoughts on this evolving situation in the near future. Though I have a strong reason to think that the 2004-2005 season is in serious jeopardy. In the meantime, for those looking for concise information should begin with CBS Sportsline's excellent Lockout 101 for further details.

"Perspective is Everything"

Paul Wells and I had the same thought, and he expresses it this way:

But what's on the menu for Paul Martin today? What's George W. Bush eating, wherever he is? Are there berries? Is there smelly cheese? Somebody give me the news that matters!

Quote of the (Fri)day

In what hopefully will become a new permanent feature, I plan to post a new humorous/insightful weekly quote each Friday... We'll start with this beauty:

"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila."

- Mitch Radcliffe

America: F$*& Yeah!

I find myself embarassed to say I haven't seen the Parker/Stone duo's latest, Team America: World Police. Andrew Sullivan, among others, has declared it an opus, the best film of the year. Apparently, there's something for everybody, with unabashed mockeries of Kim Jong Il, Michael Moore, and the entire neoconservative ideology. The South Park guys are truly some of America's best satirists; South Park The Movie, for example, was pure genius. What's gotten me excited lately is this video clip, with the rockin' tribute to the "new Jacksonianism" (in Sullivan's words) from the film's soundtrack playing in the background. Hilariously, Matt Stone has said it's his dream that if "I'm So Ronery" is nominated for an Oscar, Kim Jong Il will come and perform it himself. If you haven't yet seen it, MacDuff, let's go.

Anything Else

No, not the Woody Allen movie (which I humbly think is much better than critics have made it out to be), BUT the state of the Democratic Party's Establishment. Once again, Kos nails it:

"..our team is using people who couldn't find a victory to save their lives, and multiple Bob Shrums, with their 0-7 records, run around getting the big dollars and big candidates.

And then they lose again.

It's clear that the status quo is untenable. It's time to try something else. Anything else. But those implicated in the current regime should be ridden out of town in disgrace, not rewarded with yet another turn at the wheel. "

Lest it be necessary to state, I am a Reform Democrat too.

< / bush >

I can understand the lack of protests - Bush chickened out on anything except showing up, and it is December in Canada. And Tim's comments below are from a further rightish perspective than mine, but still adequately capture the frustrations. I did want to try my hand at throwing out a draft speech for Bush that might help capture this historic moment - in the "let's look beyond the past and toward the future" kind of vein... But why bother, when this President's idea of diplomacy is to insist only that he was/is/will be right. Read Frum for the echo: Triumph. I am not in Canada these days, but I find it hard to believe that Bush won my country over with a few joking lines that glossed over every damn disagreement we have had with his country since his first election in 2000. And that's the crux of the entire problem. Regardless of the evidence (any evidence, for that matter), all his arguments just degenerate to the issue of "security" or at their worst, the desirability to rid the world of Saddam. Because Canadians really wanted him to stay in power, of course... Fuck, that is an argument I particularly love, because it is such a magnificent example of ducking the actual debate that it might just encapsulate 43's whole Presidency - the reasons for its simplified sucess and yet abject failure. For at this rate, why don't we man the barricades for Kim Jong Il, the Shah of Iran, etc... The reason that Bush is so infuriating (and may I even say, why he inspires such pure hatred) is not necessarily the policies themselves, but his administration's absolute insistence that they are PERFECT. Let me repeat that - not that his policies may not be appropriate to the situation, but the fact that they consider them ABSOLUTELY GENIUS. The idea that his team (mostly from Texas, as they are) have not grasped every nuance and might actually - GASP - be incorrect, is more than the worst blasphemy. Bush is so shocking to those on the Left precisely because of the ideological nature of his certainty. And the rightwing media continues to glory in their triumph, even as the so-called "liberal" media refuses to play ads by a Church who only wants to advertise that all are welcome into their congregation. And so back to the title of this post... inspired by an actual sign viewed from the Canadian protests. A brilliant one indeed. Even not a code-man myself, "the end of Bush" is a day I look forward to with great relish. The end of closemindedness in the White House, we can only hope. And maybe then (only then?) the esteemed Tom Friedman will recover from his newfound rants that so resembles the path trod so recently by Mr. Albert Gore... You can only do what you can.

Soft bigotry

The networks banned THIS ad for being "too controversial"? Watch the ad, read the networks' case (below), and judge for yourself whether this ad should run. (Then read Josh Marshall's blog, which has covered this nicely. Having "worked" in journalism before, I understand that it's the media outlet's prerogative to pick and choose which ads it will run, and that it is under no obligation to run any advertisement. But how controversial is this ad, really? And are they so worried that enough nit-picking bigots will boycott their stations? (If they are, then America truly is in a sad place right now.) Here's the reasoning, according to a written explanation the United Church of Christ got from CBS and NBC:

The CBS and NBC television networks are refusing to run a 30-second television ad from the United Church of Christ because its all-inclusive welcome has been deemed "too controversial." The ad, part of the denomination's new, broad identity campaign set to begin airing nationwide on Dec. 1, states that -- like Jesus -- the United Church of Christ seeks to welcome all people, regardless of ability, age, race, economic circumstance or sexual orientation. According to a written explanation from CBS, the United Church of Christ is being denied network access because its ad implies acceptance of gay and lesbian couples -- among other minority constituencies -- and is, therefore, too "controversial." "Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations," reads an explanation from CBS, "and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks."

Bush visit miscellany

Notes from President Bush's first visit to Canada (and the first such visit by a US president since Clinton in 1995!): Ouch (CBC): A small number of pro-Bush demonstrators also showed up to offer a welcome to the conservative, family-values politician. One of them held a sign reading: "The only mad cow is Carolyn Parrish," referring to the Liberal MP recently thrown out of caucus after repeated verbal attacks against the Americans and Bush. Alberta cheers, #1(NYT): "I proudly ate some Alberta beef last night, and - I'm still standing," Mr. Bush said, to laughter and applause. Alberta cheers, #2(Globe and Mail): George W. Bush broke away from his entourage of Secret Service agents and other aides on Parliament Hill yesterday to glad-hand with a group of newly elected and star-struck Tory MPs, telling them with a smile and twinkle in his eye to "hang in there." Martin's best line: After a reporter's question in French about mad cow disease, PM turns to Bush and says: "The question -- what she said -- I'll translate -- was, don't you think Canada has a great government?" Bush's best line: "Paul and I share a great vision for the future, two prosperous, independent nations joined together by the return of NHL hockey." Dumbest spinoff story (Globe and Mail): Feasting on the mono-unsaturated fat of the land Menu for Ottawa's presidential dinner nutritionally sound, experts say Look presentable, now (NYDN) (Hat tip: Wonkette):

Is this Le Cirque - or Canada? Photographers and other members of the White House press corps used to more casual attire were freaking after a memo from President Bush's people yesterday dictated the "dress code" for his joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin today. "Jeans and T-shirts will not be permitted," it read. "Gentlemen must wear jackets."

Some thoughts on the Bush visit

In some ways, it appears nothing substantive got done during Bush's visit to the Great White North. We got no firm answer on opening the US border to Canadian cattle, and Paul Martin was apparently stunned when Bush asked for Canada's help on his pet project of missile defence. As usual, even the protestors accomplished little save for some memorable bombastic posters (more on that in a later post).

And yet the most important task of all was accomplished: beginning the task of mending Canada's relationship with its closest ally. Jean Chretien unnecessarily antagonized the United States, and George Bush especially, in his last years as PM. The antics of Carolyn Parrish didn't help either. And it's no secret that the majority of Canadians disagreed with the decision to invade Iraq. CBC News has been running a series the diverging lifestyles and values of Americans and Canadians. With Bush polling at 15 percent approval up here (not far higher than Osama bin Laden, I'd wager) prior to the US election last month, it appeared our differences could not be starker. But as Bush and Martin took great pains to remind us, we share too much history to be apart for long. We share a border, a democratic heritage, and a world-beating trade relationship. Bush's invocation of Mackenzie King struck just the right chord with me. The analogy was hardly apt; with Iraq as backdrop, it is something of a historical irony that Canada went to two World Wars overseas as the US dragged its heels -- not to mention the very different circumstances in 1939. But the message was clear: we've been through far worse, and we've been there together. From what I saw, the body language between the heads of state was good. I hope Bush and Martin genuinely like each other, or at least respect each other, because otherwise cross-border relations are going to suck unnecessarily. (See Chretien, Jean, above). If I have one gripe about the visit, it was Bush's gratuitious defence of the Iraq invasion during the press conference in Ottawa. Gratuitous because this was the question a reporter asked of him:

In the days after September 11th, thousands of Canadians went to Parliament Hill to demonstrate solidarity with the U.S. -- and, in fact, in cities across the country. Yet, public opinion polls and other evidence suggest that now, today, our peoples are, in fact, diverging; that, in fact, our peoples are drifting apart. Why do you think that is? And do you have any responsibility for it?

And his response (edited slightly for conciseness):

You know, I haven't seen the polls you look at, and we just had a poll in our country where people decided that the foreign policy of the Bush administration ought to be -- stay in place for four more years. And it's a foreign policy that works with our neighbors. Trade between our countries has never been stronger. But it's a foreign policy that also understands that we've got an obligation to defend our security. I made some decisions obviously, that some in Canada didn't agree with, like, for example, when we removed Saddam Hussein and enforcing the demands of the United Nations Security Council. ... No, look, I fully understand there are some in my country -- probably in your country and around the world -- that do not believe that Iraq has the capacity of self-government, that they're willing to sign those people up for tyranny. That's not what I think. And that's not what a lot of Americans think. And they believe that democracy is possible in Iraq. That's a legitimate point to debate. But I'm the kind of fellow who does what I think is right, and will continue to do what I think is right. I'll consult with our friends and neighbors, but if I think it's right to remove Saddam Hussein for the security of the United States, that's the course of action I'll take. And some people don't like that; I understand that. But that's a good thing about a democracy, people can express themselves freely.

So he takes a slam-dunk question, the answer to which is something along the lines of "our peoples and our histories actually are closer than any poll might have you believe", and turns it into, well, what he said. Though Iraq was not even mentioned by the questioner, Bush makes a point of implying that Canadians, among others, believe that Iraqis do not have the capacity for self-government. He tells us, as though we didn't get the memo, that he just won an election. If he wanted to stay on message with the "agree to disagree" tack on Iraq, the message should have been: What's done in Iraq is done, but we hope to maintain our historic friendship with Canada through cooperation on the elections in Iraq and beyond. Instead, seemingly putting on full late-October campaign mode, Bush decided to rake himself over the coals once more in front of the Canadian press (and it was the Canadian press, because the American press corps apparently couldn't have cared less about this visit) by flogging his Iraq policy horse. Still, I got a positive vibe from the visit. I hope I'm not the only one.

The Barbarian Invasions (and a Challenge)

Just watched a rather stunning double-feature of movies tonight. The Canadian instant classic "Les Invasions Barbares" and Eastwood's "Mystic River". I may be the last person to see either of these beauties, but if by some chance you have missed either, rush to the videostore. One blogging postscript, and challenge of sorts. In a dinner near the end of "Invasions", one of the characters claims that "intelligence is not an individual trait, but is a collective phenomenon, national and intermittant." Three separate examples are then raised: 1. Athens, 416BC - Euripides premieres his Electra. Two rivals attend, Sophocles and Aristophanes, and two friends, Socrates and Plato. 2. Firenze, 1504 - Palazzo Vecchio, on facing walls, two painters: on the right, Leonardo da Vinci. On the left, Michaelangelo. An apprentice, Raffaello. A manager, Machiavelli. 3. Philadelphia, 1776-1787 - Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, and Madison. The challenge? More examples. It is late so I am going to reflect and see what we can come up with in the comments. Creativity shall be awarded bonus points.

A brush with Stott

The fact that there is now a John Stott controversy in the blogosphere is interesting, because as David Brooks rightly notes, he is not exactly a prominent media figure. But it is also personally interesting to me because last year I attended a service at Stott's church, All Souls, just north of Oxford Circus in London. I went with one of my classmates, a devout Christian friend who was a regular at the church's services. If I sound like an out-of-touch anthropologist here, I apologize. They're just my impressions. And no, there is no thesis here. Having attended several sober, stolid services at St. Paul's Cathedral through the year, I was a bit surprised by the service. This was a different kind of service: a bit more effusive, reverent, and powerful; the kind one might expect at an evangelical church in rural America. I admit I don't remember whether the minister was in fact Stott. (I believe the sermon was on Thessalonians.) I do remember that unlike the minister at St. Paul's, he made some thinly veiled criticisms of the gay lifestyle and the Anglican Church's leniance thereto. The crowd was a mix of locals, expatriates and tourists. There was much excitement about the imminent arrival of Franklin Graham, the Rev. Billy Graham's son, who was giving a speech at a Christian convention in the near future. There were none of the usual hymnals. Instead, they had a 10-piece rock orchestra play pop-esque songs that must have been written within the last two decades, all of which had lyrics unabashed about the worship of Christ. A friend later told me that such a service, what with the music and all, is known as "modern worship." I don't know enough about Stott or evangelism in general to argue his importance in American Christianity or in the present debate over "values." And I certainly didn't get enough information from one service at his church. But I'm glad I went, because Stott definitely is a major figure of modern British Christianity. UPDATE: I did hear Stott, and the date was 16 May 2004. And the sermon was on Colossians, not Thessalonians. Remarkably, you can actuallyhear Stott deliver the sermon at Allsouls.org (registration required).

Evidence of a good time had

Some of MacDuff's photos from the infamous Ottoman Ball. No doubt Edward Said is stirring in his grave.
The tux
The belly
The gammon!

Word of the Year

No surprise to us. Hopefully someday soon I will have to stop explaining to people what it means. And it is also pleasing to see "peloton" popping up at #7 on the list.

Sullivan's Back

Not that he ever left, but I have been thinking recently that Sullivan's blog seems to have lost a little lustre now that the election and its aftermath have come and gone. A little too self-congratulatory, maybe? I guess you could say I haven't been enjoying it as much. But the last two days have been an excellent flurry: Abu Ghraib, just what I would have said about Brooks' terrible "John Stott" column, rightful damning of the British academia on the Atlee-Churchill bias, Mullah jailings over free speech in Iran, the South African high court on marriage rights, and - perhaps most exciting - the news that Richard Posner, famed law and economics judge, will blog. When that one gets running it will be worth a permalink. We read plenty of him in my Torts, Judicial Remedies, and Jurisprudence classes at Dalhousie. I don't always agree with his positions (to every rule are there not exceptions?), but they certainly help you get a root understanding of the issues involved in the case, sometimes with surprising results.

Latvian Wisdom

The Ball was indeed a wonderful time, nothing like the feeling of wearing your "own" tux. In actuality a rather tame event, though you have to marvel that however prestigious the school, you can count on seeing the same intelligent, good looking students dancing around stupidly and drinking cheap vodka. Looking forward to Tom Wolfe's deconstruction of it all in his new book (once it hits softcover, of course). I don't think anyone will be complaining, least of all any Turks: the food was fine (though isn't everything after copious champagne and stella?), a full 15 person choir lit up the stage for the opening hour, backgammon boards on the dinner tables, and we witnessed some pretty impressive belly dancing. It was rather dark so sadly many of the pictures just could not capture the moment - though I will forward to Tim what I have. If only the one of me surrounded by the harem of belly dancers turned out... I did have a hilarious moment in climbing onto a chair to get a better vantage point on the dancing, off on the side wall where an elder group of guests were sitting. Why are these guys so old, I wondered at the time. Only later did the line from Oxblog sink in: "The official host of the OUEAS Ball is the Turkish Ambassador to the United Kingdom." So Tim, note in the belly dancing picture, the guys head in the foreground is likely an esteemed guest of His Excellency Akin Alptuna. As was the guy (not pictured) who swore loudly when he attempted to sit back down and noticed I was standing on his chair. And so the encounters with history continue. The quote of the ball? Made quite early on by a Latvian friend in the BCL/Mjur program. After a psuedo-intellectual discussion on the Ukrainian elections and the consequences for Eastern Europe as a whole, I start chiding him for not showing up with any ladies. We have a saying in Latvia, he rebuts. "Why bring wood to a forest? And so why bring women to a Ball?" Point taken, my friend. And let such moments of laughter continue.

Housekeeping

A few notes as MacDuff prepares for the controversial ball. 1. I assume the page layout and information will do, at least for now. I'm adding links to The Onion and Jon Stewart, as well as a few of my favorite libertarian and conservative blogs. Fair and balanced. 2. I can post photos if you email them to me. Something tells me the Ottoman pics will be worth posting. Oxblog's David Adesnik posted a couple of days ago on the same email you received: "The official host of the OUEAS Ball is the Turkish Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Please note that interested parties can sign the petition online. If you follow the link in the upper left hand corner of the signature page, you can purchase a lovely ottoman for only $129.99 (shipping included)." 3. Yes, the Mark Warner profile -- and others -- are coming. I'm trying to do some neat things with it, but Blogger has limitations. In other news, if you believe Maria Shriver, the 28th Amendment won't be passed in time for Arnie to make a run at the presidency. Scratch off one profile to come up with.

Tonight's "Ottoman Ball"

So Bush arrives in Canada, and what does MacDuff do on the other side of the Atlantic? Goes out and buys his first tuxedo of course. Coincidence? well, who knows the mysterious ways that the world turns, but these two events will likely be forever linked in my head. The main motivator for today's purchase: the Oxford European Affairs Society's "Ottoman Ball" tonight. Procrastinating as usual, I head to drop off my suit to be drycleaned at the 4 hour place at 11:30AM - 6 hours before they close - but so sorry, exceptional circumstances today. My friend had previously scored a good deal at a place with second-hand selection, and I figure it is Black Tie... So it is down to "the Ballroom" this afternoon, where I stumble across a gem of an outfit - 15 pound jacket, 35 pound pants that fit like they were made for me, and then a 30 pound Pierre Cardin shirt that, like I girl, I fall in love with and cannot leave behind. Combine that with the "MacDuff Dress" Bowtie I picked up last weekend in Edinburgh outside the castle, and you have got yourself a winning outfit. I will send pictures via email tomorrow (another reason to revamp our blogging efforts onto a site of our own) Oh - though I should note that the Ball itself has aroused some controversy. Below is a petition that circulated last week. Check out the link to the poster and decide for yourself. Some of the concerns raised are legitimate, but at the same time any offence was surely unintentional. As I said, a full report tomorrow.

Petition to Protest the advertising of OUEAS's "Ottoman Ball": Questioning the Ethics of Representation The Oxford University European Affairs Society's "Ottoman Ball" is only a few days away, and has been widely advertised through posters and email announcements across the university. The event has been billed as a showcaseof "the once glorious Ottoman Empire," and aims to "reflect the best of this culture, and the role of modern Turkey as a bridge between European thought and Islamic art, music and philosophy" (http://www.oueas.org/ball.html).

However, instead of promoting respectfully and representing fully the breadthof the Ottoman Empire or of the cultures and societies associated with it,theOUEAS's posters depict a debaucherous harem scene, with numerous nude womenlounging around, dancing, and playing music - an image that recapitulates the best of European stereotypes of its created 'Orient.' In fact, the image is not far from the cover painting on Edward Said's renowned book,"Orientalism,"which critiques this very construction of the Near East in the European imagination.

Not only are the image and the advertising of the ball in general offensivetomany of Turkish, Arab, and Persian backgrounds, and to other historically -aware and culturally-sensitive students, but they are arguably just plainly inaccurate. It is very difficult to see how such stereotypical depictions reflect "the best of" the region's multiple and complex histories, philosophies and cultures, and it is reductionistic of the OUEAS to suggest that they do.

An additional and entirely separate concern is the representation of women in the publicity campaign. It is indisputable that the institution of the harem epitomizes the objectification of women and their use as objects of sexual pleasure. The historical accuracy of the harem as it is portrayed here is very much a contested issue, and to use a harem scene to publicize a ball purporting to "reflect the best of" a culture, is problematic at best; it serves to glorify this representation of blatant sexual exploitation. Alternatively, if the organization claims to be against such derogatory depiction of women, the use of these images in their publicity campaign is hypocritical.

We seek to voice our disagreement with the OUEAS's posters and blurbs and ask for an apology for its insensitive and inaccurate advertising. Now inparticular, at a time when many are seeking to forge genuine bridges between societies and cultures that have been long linked, such unquestioned reinforcement of stereotypes does little to further coexistence and cooperation; there needs to be a deeper and more accurate ethic of representation.

Still Seeking the Truth?

I think we need to get a permanent link up to the Onion, my friend, along with Jon Stewart and the Daily Show's freely available videos. These two have served admirably as a constant source of humour in these disappointing political times. The latest from the Onion? Swift Boat Veterans Still Hounding Kerry. Money quote:

Another ad, called "The Cheat," features first-hand testimony from Retired U.S. Navy Cpt. Charles Plumly. "With my own eyes, I witnessed John Kerry cheating at poker," Plumly says in the ad. "If he's willing to cheat at card games in a war zone, what might he do while playing badminton at his next-door neighbor's barbecue?"

Canadian Quotes

Courtesy of Mr. Stransky. A little late, but maybe someday we can incorporate into speeches of our own. And I would like to think that you can admire the Laurier and Woodsworth as being of equal merit. Given the nice 100 year symmetry, Sir Wilfrid's lines probably would have been an admirable choice - if the final draft hasn't yet gone to press: What the West Wing would have liked from us: "Canada shall be the star towards which all men who love progress and freedom shall come." - Wilfrid Laurier, October 14, 1904 "I am speaking to you at a moment of grave crisis, when violent and fanatical men are attempting to destroy the unity and the freedom of Canada." - Pierre Trudeau, October 16, 1970 What I would have liked to give them: "We can hardly join the Americans on our own terms and we never ought to join them on theirs." - Thomas D'Arcy McGee, 1868 "We won't let this country die... this Canada which is, as our national anthem says, our home and native land. We are going to say to those who want us to stop being Canadians, we are going to say a resounding, an overwhelming 'no!'" - Pierre Trudeau, 1980 "While we are urged to fight in freedom and democracy, it should be remembered that war is the very negation of both." - J.S. Woodsworth, Sept 8. 1939

More partisan post-game analysis

Yes, maybe we lost big time this year. But we can take consolation in the fact that the other side is dumber. Ha ha ha. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.)

Social Insecurity

With the upcoming baby boomer retirement, it should come as no surprise to anyone remotely familiar with politics that the so-called "3rd rail" looms ominously, with healthcare, as the major domestic issue of the coming century. Pretty soon it will be time for us policy wonk wannabees to bring ourselves up to speed with the harsh realities and factual difficulties that the coming years present, if successful reform is ever to take place. Who are the prescient ones out there doing D.Phil's on the issue now, I wonder? As an opening salvo into the debate - two articles. The first is a column by George F. Will written a few months ago that provides some (disastrous) statistics, and rightly chides candidates Kerry and Edwards for refusing to discuss or plan for this reality. But since Kerry is now left to rust in the dustbin of failed Presidential candidates (will he begin ranting a la Albert Gore?), the focus lies squarely on the Bush team plans. Back in March, Will offered this comment: "The Bush administration has a plan for coping with the facts, but no discernible plan for economies that will make possible paying the transition costs." Well fast-forward to article #2, the end of November - and the birthdays of both Alison MacDuff and Martha Farrell - and this piece in the New York Times: "Bush's Social Security Plan Is Said to Require Vast Borrowing." Read and learn, I suppose. My expertise in the field is weak at the moment, so I won't pretend to wax poetical on the subject - yet. Two thoughts for further debate on the Bush plan, however. (1) When will the reckless borrowing catch up to the 43rd President, and who will bear the brunt of this pain? (answer: probably not the top 1%) and (2) What happens to those people whose "private accounts" go bankrupt thanks to Enron-style collapses? Will there be protections in place, or will the government simply stand by and say "tough luck, oldtimer"? Truly an issue that is not going to go away, so let's see the parties and thinktanks start proposing solutions across the spectrum. And let the best ideas win.

Reno on my mind

If the Democrats are going to win the White House in 2008, they're going to need a strategy to win the west. And to do that, they would be well-advised to start by examining a post-election analysis of the vote in Nevada by The Nation's Sasha Abramsky. His analysis of the result is similar to mine: the Dems botched Clark County and lost the rurals heavily while keeping the lid on the Republicans in Washoe. The result: a "morals and terrorism voter" landslide and an overall election edge for Bush. I question his analysis on Washoe: "When the votes were tallied, the Democrats had managed to narrow Bush's margin in Washoe County to 4 percent, down from 9 percent in 2000; but that achievement was diluted by the fact that 67 percent of Washoe County's registered voters came out to vote, a lower percentage than in any other county in the state--thus numerically diminishing the signficance of Kerry's percentage gains there." Huh? Wasn't it better for the Democrats to have a low turnout in a heavily Republican county? And if Bush won the county, why would the Dems want MORE people showing up to the polls and adding to Bush's statewide vote count? He does, however, successfully pick up on the strange political vibe I felt in Reno:

Three days after the election I headed to Reno and parked myself in the gaudy Circus Circus casino-hotel--one of only two fully unionized casinos in the city--for four days, in a twelfth-floor room looking out across the gridlike streets to the snowy slopes beyond. The casinos were in full swing, and the video arcades at Circus Circus--with games-of-the-times like Target Terror--were jammed, as were the bars, st rip clubs and instant-wedding chapels around town. As I listened to conversations, hardly anybody seemed to be talking politics. Reno must be a particularly galling town for obsessive political types to live in; it is, after all, where people come to deliberately block out the "real world," the world of politics and wars (the Falluja offensive was just getting under way) and economic uncertainties, behind a great canopy of blinking, twitching neon pizazz. There was an irony in talking with residents about the electoral victory of moral fundamentalism while garrisoned in a junior version of Sin City, surrounded by casinos and bars and topless cabarets, by porno booths and, in the desert counties outside town, legalized brothels. Quite clearly, these sin palaces were not about to go out of business anytime soon. In fact, the economic elite of northern Nevada that profits from the "sin" business loved the Republican victory--loved the lower taxes it heralded, the deregulation of the workplace, the tilting of the playing field ever more steeply against organized labor.

Just found this article in the Reno Gazette-Journal, and since the electoral votes have just been certified there, I guess this is the final post-game report.

Bush defeated Democrat John Kerry 50 percent to 47.4 percent in Nevada to win a second term. That’s the fourth-narrowest margin in 36 Nevada presidential elections dating back to 1864. Bush’s win keeps Nevada’s streak alive as a presidential bellwether. Since 1912, only one candidate has won the presidency without taking Nevada, the exception being Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976. And Nevada has never defeated a wartime president. Nevada voters have backed candidates across the political spectrum — liberals, moderates and conservatives. ... In the past 17 presidential elections, Democrats have carried Washoe County only twice: Franklin Roosevelt in 1940 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964. “People worked hard to try to swing Washoe County” in 2004, said Nevada state archivist Guy Rocha. “That’s like trying to turn around a battleship, but they made a little bit of inroad. Northern Nevada, Washoe County, this is Republican country. Overall, that’s a fact.”

Note Nevada's status as a bellwether, and the trends going the Democrats' way in Washoe. If the Democrats are going to win again, they are going to have to figure out how to turn the Silver State blue.

2008 Presidential Candidates

Starting tomorrow, a new regular feature: profiling early picks for the 2008 presidential election. My early choices for the Democratic candidate for 2004 were hit or miss: Gray Davis was my pick in 2000; as his stock dropped precipitously, my man to watch in 2002 was Howard Dean. One long shot out of two ain't bad. (Kerry was such a boring and obvious choice.) With new candidates on the horizon for both parties, and with Cheney retiring, the field is as unclear as it's been for decades. I'll try to mix in the conventional prospects (Hillary, Rudy) with the lesser-known fringe prospects (Mike Easley, Phil Bredesen, Kathleen Sebelius). Pros and cons on each. Should be fun. We'll start tomorrow with Virginia Governor Mark Warner (D).

Meanwhile, in Baghdad...

If you think the crisis in Ukraine looks bad, take a closer look at what's going on in Iraq.

Some of Iraq's most powerful political groups, including the party led by the interim prime minister, called Friday for a six-month delay in elections, now scheduled for Jan. 30, citing concerns over security. The list of groups seeking the delay includes some that have been among the strongest backers of the U.S. policy in Iraq, and their call indicates sudden momentum for those arguing for a delay. The two main Kurdish parties supported the delay request, marking the first time the Kurds, closely allied with the Americans, have taken a clear stand on the issue... The Iraqi government itself did not join in a petition to the electoral commission seeking a delay, and the party of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi gave oral assent rather than a signature to the document, which was signed by at least 15 groups and dozens of individual political and religious figures after an impassioned two-hour meeting at the Baghdad home of Adnan Pachachi, a prominent Sunni politician.

So even though the Kurds are asking for a delay in the midst of continued violence around the country, Allawi's people have privately agreed the election must be postponed, and violence flares in Ramadi and Mosul, the Bush administration continues to insist that the election will go forward. The real issue here is that either way, the terrorists win. If the elections go forward in January, the Sunnis, who dominate the areas plagued by violence, will rightfully claim disenfranchisement and denounce the results of the election. If the elections are postponed, the insurgents will claim their victory over a long-held American promise, and may even accuse Allawi of postponing the election in order to illegitimately preserve his own American-backed regime. Moreover, a messy election could split the Sunnis and Shiites and effectively tear the country apart. I realize the crisis in the Ukraine is far from over, but this is shaping up to be an even greater disaster.

Cold War-esque

If I haven't posted anything about the Ukranian crisis, it's because I've been riveted by reporting on it elsewhere. Daniel Drezner's superb blog has the best coverage I've encountered. It is now the conventional wisdom that the voting was rigged (though exit polls weren't exactly reliable in another recent election), so with the central controversy resolved, I'm in sit-back-and-watch-what-unfolds mode. It's starting to look like a Cold War proxy fight, with the US, Canada and EU refusing to accept the election results and with Russia firmly behind Yanukovich. Whether or not there's a new election, Drezner worries that one part of the country will be so upset with the eventual result that it might attempt to secede. That can't thrill the Kremlin. And it shouldn't thrill the West either. PS Who knew the Ukraine had a population of 48 million?

One More for the Road

And finally on this lazy afternoon, just before heading out to collect a costume for the Balliol "Emergency Services" BOP - think I'll go as a victim who has lost his arm, so as to cuddle up with the inevitable galore of nurses - a wonderful update on the DNC chair situation courtesy of mydd.com - the so-called "Blogfather". We both seem to favour Dean, but as with many other Kossacks I would also be pleased with Simon Rosenberg... some type of alliance between the two (with Dean at head) would be my ideal. (FYI: for those uninitiated with Oxford, BOP just stands for drunken college party, normally with some dumb theme and definitely resulting in some type of chaotic end)

Democracy comes to Ukraine

As a supposed political blog, it is probably scandalous that neither of us has posted on the ongoing electoral situtation in the Ukraine. But now that Drudge is fronting an article on the real possibility of a re-vote, all you can say is "wow", and stay tuned. Nice to see the effectiveness of the street-level protests. This IS what democracy looks like. And might represent a Supreme Court making a truly independent and historic stand. Conspiracy theorists should check out McNair's Nov. 26th post on challenger Yushchenko's illness as well. As they say in Alice in Wonderland, curiouser and curiouser...

Spectacular Own Goals

Back to politics... even as the Paris Hilton stuff is outstandingly hilarious (though when I first saw the photo, it crossed my mind that you failed to post any mention of the Bush twins Thanksgiving birthday). It is a hungover Saturday, so don't expect any "enterprises of great pith and moment" here. I just want to post this observation that I discussed at length with a great BCL [bachelor of civil law at oxford, which every other university in the world calls an LLM - don't get me started] buddy of mine from Australia. Watching Tony Blair's government these days, it seems to be on conservative overdrive. Blunkett, the Home Secretary - who is responsible for the horrid VISA laws that saw me detained at Stanstead - seems to be the man of the hour with the focus on fear, fear, fear now culminating in ID cards and ever stricter security measures. The former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook (who resigned over Iraq) appears every now and then in the Guardian, bemoaning the fact that Labour seems unwilling to sell its positives of the last 7 years and instead insists on grabbing ever more of the Tory platform. This article is especially worth reading, as it encapsulates a lot of what I have been thinking recently in eloquent language. Here are some of the many money quotes:

The ultimate way to frustrate terrorism is not to be terrified by it. Yet we appear to be keen to do the terrorists' job for them by keeping the nation thoroughly frightened by proclaiming that al-Qaida are "on our doorstep". If we are going to claim that Labour makes Britain safer, we need to offer policies to convincingly prove it. Promising an effective system of ID cards by 2012 does not suggest the threat is that urgent. Nor has the government ever explained why ID cards would be any more successful in preventing terrorism in London than in Madrid, where ID cards had long been compulsory. Whatever case can be conjured up for the war, there is no avoiding the conclusion that, assessed by its contribution to curbing terrorism, the invasion - and even more the conduct of the occupation - has been a spectacular own goal The most frequently articulated complaint is that "you are all the same". Yet, perversely, the objective of triangulation is to minimise the difference between a party and its rival, and to deny the electorate a real choice between competing value systems. The immediate problem is that a strategy of doing good by stealth prevents us from convincing many of our own supporters why they should make the effort to keep Labour in power. The more profound problem is that, when we leave office, we will have failed to build a progressive consensus to defend our legacy.

The original observation I mentioned above? Simply that for those on the left these days (at least in Britain and Canada) ardent political types face a difficult, often maddening choice. Do we side with the unabashedly pro-left forces (NDP, Lib-Dem) who have no chance of winning power and often veer too far toward the extremities? Or do we "take arms against a sea of troubles" from within, holding our noses at the eagerness of leadership to score electoral victories by selling out the very historic principles that the party was founded upon? [And on this score, note that I excuse Clinton - he needed triangulation in the much more conservative America.] The policies of Blair and the Chretien-Martin liberals seems founded on such a resolute hunger for control and power. What good is a "left-wing" party victory, if "the chief good and market of its time" is but to deliver the fiscal and social policies of its opponent in order to marginalize him? I say it is no great victory to simply be the ones to institute the other side's ideas. I understand the need to incorporate good ideas from all sides of the spectrum. It is the seemingly unilateral nature of the focus of Blair now, and most pronounced in the early and mid-term years of Chretien, that so frustrates. Which is probably an early indication on why I will continue to be an on-again, off-again Liberal for the forseeable future. And as a final aside, also note how, even in this minute discussion, Cook's public arguments reinforce the pure sophistication of British politics over their Canadian counterpart. Do I need draw the comparison of Cook's reasoning to the abhorrent Carolyn Parrish and her idiotic name-calling? Where in the Liberal ranks do we have (or could hope to see) such a high profile, intellectual backbench dissent? And did you notice the Hamlet references in this post? I saw the RSC in London on Monday. And keep your eye on the name Andrew Higgins for Attorney-General of a future (Aussie) Labour Government. Believe - You heard it here first.

Time for a new role model

I couldn't resist posting this.

National Lampoon's Van Wilder actress Tara Reid is fed-up with her reputation for being a "retard" and cites friend Paris Hilton as her role model for overcoming her party girl image. The American Pie star, 28, is keen to outgrow her controversial persona and be taken more seriously in Hollywood. Reid says, "I am known as this retard. I want to grow up. I don't want to be the drunk girl. It hurts my feelings when stuff is written about me. Paris seems to move on from situations all the time, why can't I?"

Paris Hilton as a role model for overcoming the party girl image?

Just when the hype over One Night in Paris, Paris Hilton's homemade sex video co-starring ex-boyfriend Rick Salomon, seems to have dissipated, here comes Hustler magazine's announcement that they will publish eight photos of the hotel heiress making out with a woman. Agent David Hans Schmidt, who sold the photos the adult magazine for an undisclosed price, told The Associated Press Monday the photographs, which date back about two years, depict a fully clothed Hilton "with a brunette at a nightclub, cavorting with her, dancing and cuddling with her and fondling her."

First sign you're not a "role model" for would-be reform "retards": it is noteworthy when you are "fully clothed".

Alexander the Terrible

Sounds like Oliver Stone's cooked up a real turkey with "Alexander." Some are saying the film is a thinly-veiled critique of Bush's penchant for "imperialism", but in any event the criticism is coming from both sides of the aisle. Left-leaning Slate's film critic calls the movie "a sprawling mess, a lox, a three-hour non-starter." And from William F. Buckley's National Review:

This is one of the colossal catastrophes of all time. At a screening on Monday night, during the death scene of Alexander's lover Hephaiston, people were screaming with laughter as Alexander made a big speech while, behind him in soft focus, Hephaiston went into a conniption fit and croaked ... [It] isn't just bad. It's Springtime for Hitler bad.

Ouch.

What are the odds? (Redux)

Looks like Kerry's window of opportunity in Ohio is coming to a close, as Bush is increasing his lead as the provisionals are counted.

Summary of provisional ballots count - UPDATED 11/24/04 Note: 64 of 88 counties have reported. Current % of provisionals being counted: 79% Current "additional" vote count: Bush +29,285 Kerry +23,947 Please note, most of the largest counties have still not reported.

Some outposts in the blogosphere continue to argue that JFK has a shot, but I think I hear the fat lady singing. Million-to-one shot, at best.

What are the odds?

Now for something completely different. My former poli sci TA at Yale, Brett Marston, has raised one of my all-time favourite math/probability problems on his fine blog. Okay, now that you're riveted, here's the "Monty Hall Dilemma." (I'm taking the description from this website.)

Here is the situation. Finalists in a tv game show are invited up onto the stage, where there are three closed doors. The host explains that behind one of the doors is the star prize - a car. Behind each of the other two doors is just a goat. Obviously the contestant wants to win the car, but does not know which door conceals the car. The host invites the contestant to choose one of the three doors. Let us suppose that our contestant chooses door number 3. Now, the host does not initially open the door chosen by the contestant. Instead he opens one of the other doors - let us say it is door number 1. The door that the host opens will always reveal a goat. Remember the host knows what is behind every door! The contestant is now asked if they want to stick with their original choice, or if they want to change their mind, and choose the other remaining door that has not yet been opened. In this case number 2. The studio audience shout suggestions. What is the best strategy for the contestant? Does it make any difference whether they change their mind or stick with the original choice?

The answer (highlight to read): Yes, it does make a difference. In fact, switching improves your chances of getting the car from 1/3 to 2/3. Read the linked page's explanation. And if that doesn't help, read my explanation of it on Brett's site, linked above. The answer is pretty counter-intuitive. If you still don't get it, comment here and I will get back to you. For me, it took a while for it to sink in. And apparently there is still some debate among mathematicians about the answer to this problem. How cool is that? (Answer: Ice cold.)

Security idiocy

I rarely agree with Maureen Dowd, but she's dead-on with this:

I get flagged for extra security every time I buy a one-way ticket, which seems particularly lame. Doesn't the T.S.A. realize that a careful terrorist plotter like Mohammed Atta could figure this out and use his Saudi charity money to pop for round trips even if the return portion gets wasted?

I can't tell if the TSA is under- or overestimating the intelligence of the terrorists, but one thing's for sure -- this is bureaucratic idiocy.

Double standard

Today's NYT deals with something that has long irked me: the double standard on academic plagiarism. If a student commits academic dishonesty and is caught, the penalty is course failure, probation, suspension, or outright expulsion. The transgression exists on the student's academic record until the end of time, limiting their ability to move on from the incident. I'm not saying this punishment is unjustified. But as the article highlights, very different standards exist for quote-unquote "star" professors who commit the same offense. Some names associated with Harvard's plagiarism mill include Lawrence Tribe and Doris Kearns Goodwin; elsewhere it is the (late) pop-academic star Stephen Ambrose. Who knows how many else are out there. The punishments for such academics are unclear at best, but they certainly do not include the loss of tenure. Their excuses are no better than those of student plagiarists: "the error, he said, had occurred in his rush to meet a final deadline, when a pair of research assistants inserted the material into a draft of his manuscript and accidentally dropped the quotation marks and attribution". So we give credit to these "star" professors for brilliant academic work when it is others who do the heavy lifting, yet when it comes time to dole out punishment, it is the grad students who are to blame? Then a scholar offers this preposterous reasoning for the lack of consummate punishment: 'Some scholars argued that Professor Ogletree's statement was a public humiliation more severe than any punishment that could be meted out to a student. "The discovery is the punishment," Professor Gillers said.' But isn't a college student subjected to just as excruciating and experience among peers and family, let alone employers and other institutions that may consider readmitting them to higher education? And at the beginning of their professional lives, academic or otherwise, surely the effect of such ostracism is greater when you do not have a job guaranteed through tenure. As is noted in the article, it is probably unrealistic to expect the professor to be dismissed, since the market for star academics is limitless. But isn't the lack of punishment for such transgressions an admission of lower standards for those who should be held to the highest? And if you are going to toss out a freshman for plagiarism, shouldn't you stiffen the punishment on a professor who, after all those years and advanced degrees, should know better?

Rapprochement

It is sad how our countries have drifted apart in the wake of an event that should have bound us closer than ever. Just as things look their bleakest, though, comes a report that Canada is in talks with the US (and UN) to help the Iraqis conduct their elections in January.

Sources said Canada would probably be asked to assist in developing the technical infrastructure for the election, which could include printing ballots, helping with voter registration, designing polling stations and/or training returning officers and other workers for election day. Canada would also offer advice on fraud-proofing the vote.

I understand that a ridiculously low percentage of Canadians would have voted for Bush (the last survey said 15 percent). But like him or not, there are bigger issues out there than our personal like or dislike of the president and his policies. Here we, as Canadians, have the opportunity to do something positive about Iraq, and at least give the Iraqi people a chance at a legitimate election result. We may never be as close as we were in September 2001, but this is a step in the right direction.

"Our Friendship Has No Limit"

On the Bush speech writing front, haven't come up with much on the historic side yet, maybe because i don't think that i would like to see a great canadian's word butchered by the elected Prez (?) But if I were really writing a speech for the man, and he was coming here, I would try and find a way to repeat the substance of this... for Martin it has the advantage of being JC's, and yet about as compassionate and heroic as Canadians might aspire to get - mocking damn Parrish all the while, of course. Just read it and notice how much Iraq has skewered those high ideals. And I am not a big "war on terror" guy, but if ever days required eloquence, it was post 9-11. It is somewhat sad that we - and by that I mean the collective West - lost our way and drifted there. Bush's job might be to remind us of our sense of shock from that day, even as he has so contributed to disillusionment by extending our trust beyond reasonable measure:

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien: National Day of Mourning 9/11 Memorial Address (exert as required) delivered 14 September 2001 Ottawa, Ontario: Mr. Ambassador [U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci] you have assembled before you, here on Parliament Hill and right across Canada, a people united in outrage, in grief, in compassion, and in resolve; a people of every faith and nationality to be found on earth; a people who, as a result of the atrocity committed against the United States on September 11, 2001, feel not only like neighbours but like family. At a time like this words fail us. We reel before the blunt and terrible reality of the evil we have just witnessed. We cannot stop the tears of grief. We cannot bring back lost wives and husbands. Sons and daughters. American citizens, Canadian citizens, citizens from all over the world. We cannot restore futures that have been cut terribly short. At a time like this, the only saving grace is our common humanity and decency. At a time like this, it is our feelings, our prayers and our actions that count. By their outpouring of concern, sympathy and help, the feelings and actions of Canadians have been clear. And, even as we grieve our own losses, the message they send to the American people is equally clear: Do not despair; you are not alone; we are with you -- the whole world is with you. The great Martin Luther King, in describing times of trial and tribulation, once said that: "In the end, it is not the words of your enemies that you remember, it is the silence of your friends." Mr. Ambassador, as your fellow Americans grieve and rebuild, there will be no silence from Canada. Our friendship has no limit. Generation after generation, we have traveled many difficult miles together. Side by side, we have lived through many dark times; always firm in our shared resolve to vanquish any threat to freedom and justice. And together, with our allies, we will defy and defeat the threat that terrorism poses to all civilized nations. Mr. Ambassador, we will be with the United States every step of the way -- as friends, as neighbours, as family."

I do not disagree with those words, and to a large extent wish we were truly more apart of them. but a specific quote? Will look further tomorrow. In the mean time, as an intellectual exercise, compare Carolyn Parrish's words with these. Again, I am not a fan of Bush, far from it. But even I can see the true idiot amidst that flock. AND - my version of "We Built this City" gets cut into with the following magical words - "Looking out over that Golden Gate bridge on another gorgeous sunny Saturday and not seeing that bumper to bumper to traffic... It's your favorite radio station, Your favorite radio city, The city by the bay; The city that rocks; The city that never sleeps." Mike Pal's favorite city...

The worst?

That "Worst Songs" list has an important qualification: "Though Right Said Fred's I'm Too Sexy got in, such novelties as Macarena and Who Let the Dogs Out, which by design are cheesy, were nixed. The jury also whittled down the bulk of "rotten, excruciatingly bad low-hanging fruit from the '70s," Marks says." That eliminates countless possibilities already. Of the top (bottom?) ten they list, Eddie Murphy's "Party All The Time" is unquestionably the worst. I love "We Built this City." Know what city it's about? Don't Google it. The lyrics will give you the answer. Hint: I was there at one point in the last month. But for my money, it doesn't get any worse than Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Not only is the tune gratingly annoying and the lyrics idiotically pretentious, you actually hear it all the time on the radio, unlike Eddie Murphy's greatest hits. Yeah, there are some awful tunes out there, but the overplayed ones truly are the worst.

We Built this City

On a personal note, classic TFI Friday with DJ Phil at the immortal Barony Bar of the Strathclyde Union. The atmosphere of cheap booze, classic rock and roll, and foolish drunks participating in assorted bar games and disgusting challenges, there is no better way to spend a Friday. In fact, since Phil is now selling TFI "soundtracks" for 5 pounds, I jumped at the chance to buy my own copy. Not to be disappointed. Belle and Sebastian's The Boy with the Arab Strap, The Cure's Friday I'm in Love, Queen's Don't Stop Me Now, John Denver's Leaving on a Jet Plane, Oasis' Some Might Say, AC/DC's Back in Black. Classics all. But we do campy as well, and one of my fond memories of the evening was standing on a table belting out "We Built This City on Rock and Roll" in a state of delirium. So imagine my surprise to randomly discover this 2003 USA Today article that ranks the glorious 1985 hit by Starship as the "Worst Song Ever". That is right - Ever! Check out the list for yourselves, loyal readers (ie. Tim) and render your verdict. Am I wrong for delighting in "We Built this City"? Or should the Hofbrau Brass Band begin learning it post-haste?

As Much Fun as a Recall

# of Official Candidates for California Governor on October 2rd, 2003 Ballot: 135. # of Official Parties registered for the Iraqi Elections on January 30th, 2005: 156. Ah, Democracy.

Strategic Failure

Back in one piece - amazing how fast the news cycle now turns, that news such as the Carolyn Parrish affair seems so painfully out-of-date already. For the record, I think she should have been booted long ago and only Martin's now characteristic hesitancy kept her around. Difficult to imagine a better example of rank ineptitude and blatant idiocy from a Member of Parliament. On to the new, I suppose. But first I wanted to post one final thought on the twin failures of the Kerry candidacy (stop kicking the dead brahmin already -ed.) that Cooper discussed below, namely the statement that: "...it came down to two things: Kerry's incessant negativity and his inability to articulate and drive home a different strategy for fighting terrorism." The "incessant" negativity complaint, while accurate, is a difficult one to pin on Kerry and his people. The fact is that Bush's faith-based, fairytale worldview and his "mistake-free" Presidency necessitated a campaign based primarily on rebutting dramatic distortions. It was shocking the delusion they got away with... Maybe it went overboard, as Tim states, but surely this is only a matter of degree. A referendum on the incumbent by definition involves putting out the negative spin as well as possible, so I have no complaints - and certainly not a litany of them - on this front. After all, Kerry was refreshingly optimistic on jobs and the economy. So did it really just come down to point #2 - Terrorism, stupid? Well, Yes. The question, at least for the short-term, is no longer Reagan's "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" That emphasizes negativity and it is retrospective. The new question Kerry probably needed to answer: "Do you feel that four more years of this administration will really make you safer?" I know this could be construed as playing on the other guy's turf, but that doesn't necessarily mean the home team always wins. The failure to reassure voters on the terrorism front was critical, and without this Rove's "experiment" would have certainly failed. Cooper has done an admirable job of dissecting the abysmal ability of Kerry camp to satisfy voters that the country would be safer following a Bush loss, but note that this often cut across party lines. Think Christopher Hutchins, Think Dick Morris, Think Glenn Reynolds - prime examples of independants who favored the President (however slightly) due to the tough stance on terror. The reason the incumbency rule probably didn't matter this time around was the increased scrutiny on the challenger that "wartime" demands. The stealth candidacy of Kerry - and of future Democrats - would only be successful if he could ALSO prove that HE could be trusted. And what were his credentials? I fought in Vietnam. Not enough, absent a cohesive strategy that never materialized. Too bad people weren't more afraid of the Yakutza. Why didn't Kerry develop that strategy? Maybe we can blame his advisors. Or maybe the main problem was that no Democrat running for President did, nor did any have foreign security credentials [except Gen. Clark, but see below]. In the most foolish analogy of the campaign, people tried to say that since Bush didn't have any experience pre-2000, then he could be challenged. Uh, no, that Bush is not running for President this time. Edwards? a few years on a Senate Intelligence Committee he frequently missed. Dean? governor of a small New England State. Gephardt? too closely tied to the President's foray into Iraq and the status quo. Lieberman? his plan was no different than Bush's! So Kerry wins by default by invoking Vietnam. Then, since the strategy worked a miracle for him once, he tries it again. Instead of using it as a shield to protect against attacks, he gets starts bragging about his tours of duty as if he was a lone soldier. And not only is his new opponent better financed and prepared, he has the advantage of already of leading the country in two wars... so Kerry never quite gets over the hump on the security issue, and his advantages on the whole host of other issues aren't quite enough. End of my analysis of election 2004. [NOTE: What about General Clark, you might ask above. Maybe Moore was right to endorse him in the primary for the reasons above. However, I simply think Clark proved that it is almost impossible to run for Presidency without any prior experience in elected politics. He couldn't speak on the stump and would never have held up over such a long, grueling campaign. Incidentally, this is one of the (many) reasons I convulse into laughter whenever I stumble across rumours of a Condoleeza Rice 2008 run. I look forward to Cooper's 2008 potential candidates, but I really don't think Rice has any hope whatsoever.]

A Case for Howard Dean as DNC Chair

When I had my thirty seconds backstage with John Kerry after a rally in Reno, the small talk was confined to this mindless banter: Aide [to JFK]: "These guys came all the way from Toronto just to work on the campaign." JFK:"Thank you for coming so far to help." TRAC:"We drove 3,000 miles to help you win the state of Nevada. And I also came to play poker on the side." (Seriously, I said that.) JFK: "Poker? You'd better not lose all your money playing poker, otherwise you're not going to be able to get back to Canada." An amusing -- if lame -- exchange. But therein Kerry unintentionally revealed the fundamental long-term weakness of his candidacy and of the Democratic Party. They are unwilling, and even frightened, to gamble. The new conventional wisdom in political circles is that voters concerned with "values" and "morals" won Bush this election. This insight did not convince me until I took another look at the polls on the eve of the election. The consensus among surveys of likely voters was that the United States was headed in the wrong direction and that the invasion of Iraq was a bad idea. Most importantly, the President's approval rating was below 50 percent, and the so-called "incumbent rule" dictates that undecided voters who have decided they did not want to vote for the incumbent take a close look at the challenger. These trusty bellwethers should have ensured a Kerry victory on Nov.2. They didn't. Criticize the pre-game polling all you want, but it's pretty evident the electorate was not endorsing the president's results and record when it went to the polls. The difference maker was the president's resolute stances on the issues, right or wrong. "Values" resonating in the heartland meant, to me, a DC outsider willing to do things differently from the typical politician. That's how Bush won in 2000, and I'm convinced that's how he won in 2004. In Kerry, the Democrats had the consummate career politician: a patrician, elite education; a two-decade span in the Senate, the kiss of death for presidential candidates; the unshakeable perception that he would do anything to get elected. Though Bush is now clearly an insider, he doesn't do things like a political hack. Despite unpopular stances on some issues, he pursues what he believes. Even if you can't respect those stances, you can respect the fact that he takes them. Kerry couldn't win the perception campaign: his "voted for...before I voted against" line was a disaster. That perception fed into Bush's 17-point lead among voters concerned primarily with the issue of terrorism. The Republican message: Osama can tangle with Massachusetts, but under no circumstances would he mess with Texas. Cue Kerry's concession speech. Even Kerry's supporters could not deny he flip-flopped on some issues and clearly hedged his bets on the controversial topics, hoping not to offend anybody but the most ardent neo-conservatives. As we have seen, this was not a winning strategy. But as I've written below, it was the only strategy Kerry could have pursued. His career belied his equivocal stances and statements made in the primaries would come back to haunt him. (To this day I am still unclear whether he believes the world is better off with Saddam Hussein out of power.)

Many people, both within the Democratic Party and without, saw these weaknesses. But only one serious candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination was ahead of the curve from the beginning. Consider this quote from June 5, 2003:

"This President's not popular because people like his policies, he's popular because people think he's a strong leader. And you know what, Bill Clinton said that "America will always vote for someone who's strong and wrong before they'll vote for someone who's weak and right". We appear to be weak and right, we appear to be willing to say whatever it takes to get elected. As long as we're willing to say whatever it takes to get elected, we're going to be in the minority party for a long time. You know what, those folks at the Democratic Leadership Council were wrong. The way to get elected in this country is not to be like the Republicans, it's to stand up against them and fight! You have the power to take back this party, you have the power to take back this country, we have the power to take back the White House in 2004 and if you make me the nominee of the Democratic Party I will make you proud to vote Democratic again."

That is the money political quote of the last four years. To the surprise of nobody who followed the Democratic primary process, this quote was delivered by Howard Dean. To many Democrats, a Dean nomination for the presidency represented a major gamble, the sort that they find so reprehensible. Here was a candidate who unequivocally opposed the war in Iraq, who unabashedly supported socially liberal policies, and who supported rolling back Bush's tax cuts. All presumably unacceptable stances for a national political candidate. We know how the nomination process ended up, and we know how the safe nominee worked out. As you've correctly noted, MacDuff, the status quo in the Democratic Party leadership is unacceptable, given the results they have produced. If the Democrats will win the White House in the next 12 years, they'll have to do the following: identify the problem, convince the base of the solution, persuade the electorate that the Democrats are serious and unequivocal about whatever issues they decide they believe in, and bolster an election apparatus capable of delivering money and votes. Each of these steps is huge. But the process begins by identifying the problem. And that problem, as Dean has correctly identified, is that the Democrats don't stand up for what they believe in anymore and everybody knows it. Dean is no longer a viable presidential candidate; his scream speech has all but assured that. But he stands to make the greatest contribution of any Democrat to a party that needs some serious direction. I believe he is in a unique opportunity to define and shape a new party agenda, since he has been right on the mood of the electorate all along. If he can't be a politician in the traditional sense, he should at least get the chance to run the DNC. Not only has he correctly identified the problem and the solution, he has already proven himself as the reform candidate and the most able fund raiser in the history of the Democratic Party. I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that his campaign is the only reason Kerry was able to compete at all against Bush on the issues, on get-out-the-vote, and on money. Not to mention his ability to fire up the Democratic base. The Democratic Party can become viable again. But it must become the party of outside-the-Beltway reform. It must embrace key tenets of libertarianism, limiting the federal government's incursions on civil liberties and devolving rights to the states. It must become the party of fiscal hawkishness, with a pledge to cap the budget and reduce the deficit. It must articulate a viable vision on foreign policy, one that combines Kerry's pledge to build alliances with a hopeful, optimistic and aggressive policy of spreading American values abroad. Dean and others may disagree with that last one, but at least I know where Dean stands. There should be much discussion on this blog in the coming weeks of a new vision for the Democratic party, but for now, it's time for the Democrats to play some poker. It starts by going all-in with Howard Dean. I'll close with a question asked of Dean in a Jan. 22 primary debate -- a question that may well have been asked of the recently re-elected Dubya -- and in light of the election results I have to believe Dean responded with the right answer.

Q: Some say that you lead with your heart, not with your head. DEAN: I offer the American people somebody who believes in social justice tempered by being a fiscal conservative. The greatest injustice you can do is to have an unbalanced budget- which means more cuts in social programs. I say what I believe. It's time that somebody in this party stood up for what we believe in and wasn't so careful about what they were saying.

Au revoir, et salut

I don't think the relocation of the Expos sunk in for me until I saw this today: Surreal.

How now...

Like I said, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. But look at these headlines. First, in yesterday's news, "Bush offers help in reopening US border to Canadian cattle". Then, under 24 hours later, "Texas Woman's Death Probed for Mad Cow Tie". The consequences are obvious. What terrible luck for our cattle farmers.

Is the election over?

I'm no conspiracy theorist, and I like to think I'm a realist. And as I've mentioned before, Kos has a few too many left-wing wackos posting far-out diaries. But one intriguing possibility raised over and over again on liberal boards simply is not dying: that somehow, Kerry can still win Ohio's 20 electoral votes. Most amazingly, these claims have a sliver of validity. There's too much conflicting information floating out there to make any definitive claims about an election reversal in the Buckeye State, but we do know a few things. One: the 'real' presidential election hasn't happened yet. That happens on Dec. 13, when the slate of electors for Ohio and the other 49 states meets in D.C. to 'officially' cast their votes for president. And those votes, in turn, are not certified until Congress opens them on January 6. Though the Ohio Secretary of State plans to have the election finished on December 3, that is clearly not a drop-dead date in the constitutional sense. Two: In the initial count, Bush won Ohio by a vote of 2,796,147 to John Kerry's 2,659,664 -- a margin of about 136,000. Three: right now, with Ohio, Bush would win with 286. Kerry has 252. If Ohio flips, Kerry gets 272 EVs (above the 270 threshold), and the presidency. Four: The day after the election, Kerry conceded Ohio and the election. Five: The Green and Libertarian Parties have ponied up enough money in Ohio to start the recount process. Given those facts, the relevant number appears to be 136,000. What are the chances that margin, far greater than the number that delivered Florida for Bush in 2000, can be eliminated? Not very good, but here is the formula. There are 155,000 'provisional' ballots to be counted. Without getting into the vagaries of Ohio election law, these ballots were provided to voters who were not found on the voting rolls of their home precincts when they went to vote; they will count if it is discovered they were genuinely allowed to vote in that precinct (I'm not getting into the idiocy of denying the vote because the voter is at the wrong polling station, but there you are.) It was believed that many of these provisional ballots would be thrown out, but it appears as though they are being admitted as valid at about the same rate they were in 2000. According to one Ohio paper, "In the 11 Ohio counties that have finished checking provisional ballots cast in the presidential election, 81 percent have turned out to be valid. It is too early to know whether the ballots have benefited Bush or Kerry because counties first need to determine their validity before conducting the count." Suppose the statewide stack of provisional votes were valid at the same rate as in those 11 precincts -- that would mean 125,550 more votes, either way, into the mix. The Internet consensus is that 85 percent of provisional ballots went Gore's way in 2000. I haven't seen any hard citation of that number, so I'll have to assume it's high. It does pass the muster of common sense that Kerry would win the provisional ballots though: they do tend to be cast in urban rather than rural districts because urbanites tend to change addresses more often. Let's say they go 70-30 Kerry, a conservative estimate. 87,885 more votes for Kerry; 37,665 Bush; the margin for Bush drops to 75,330. Here's where things get interesting. First, preliminary examinations of voting machine errors show that the vote totals are already changing. From the same Ohio paper: "According to a November 5 article by the Associated Press, elections officials admitted that an error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct. Franklin County reported Bush with 4,258 votes and John Kerry with 260, even though only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Election officials in that county now say a cartridge from a voting machine generated errors after the precinct closed, and only 365 people voted for Bush." That's 7,786 votes gone from Bush's column right there, bringing the margin down to 67,544. Second, there were, apparently, 93,000 'undervotes' in Ohio -- that is, ballots cast without any presidential vote counted. If you remember Florida 2000, you'll recall that this phenomenon occurs with the dreaded punch card ballots when the hole is not completely punched, either because too many loose chads remain underneath the hold or through voter error. The vast majority of these punch card machines were in strong Democratic-leaning urban areas. I'm not even going to venture a guess as to whether these go for Kerry, let alone by how much. The undervotes will be counted pretty liberally (no pun intended) -- apparently Ohio election law will count such a ballot if there's even a trace of a vote. Of course, these only get counted in a recount. Given that it's unlikely many people abstained from voting for president when they cast a ballot, if a high proportion of those ballots turn out to be valid, and a large majority vote for Kerry (again, both unverifiable propositions at this point), then we could be headed for a Florida 2K-style circus. These numbers could be fudged up or down either way, but I think it's pretty safe to say that Bush's margin of victory in Ohio will not be as high as 130,000 when all is said and done. I'd give Kerry a one-in-a-million shot of getting to the White House this time around. But as Lloyd so famously gushed over similar odds in Dumb and Dumber, "So you're telling me there's a chance!"

School on Monday

Every year, Yale students and alums have a chance to get together, drink copious amounts of alcohol, and act as elitist as we want to. The fun in Cambridge notwithstanding, we lost The Game versus Harvard today, and in horrible fashion. Amazingly, it was televised even here in Canada (on WGN), and I saw the Bulldogs lose for the fourth year in a row, a feat not accomplished by either school's team since the 1920s. Fellow Yalie Patrick Belton had the pre-game scoop on OxBlog -- a prognosis which held up after events unfolded on the field:

The Bad Guys, for their part, will wrap up not only the Ivy League title but their first 10-victory season in 98 years; which, as a consolation prize, is roughly how long it's been since one of their alumni has served a complete term as president.... (Have we mentioned, incidentally, that Steven Hadley (YLS '72) has just become national security advisor? Harvard gets the Ivy League football championship...Yale the presidency, National Security Council, and of course, CIA.)

So that's some consolation. Oh yeah, and they have school on Monday. And a stranglehold on the likely nominees for the presidency in '08. But I'll get to that later.

Our shares are worthless

This is a little weird. Looks like we need to build up our links if we want to build up market share. Although what that market is I'm not exactly sure.

Parrish for President?

Maybe the Michael Moore wing can get the disgraced (and disgraceful) Carolyn Parrish citizenship and the Dem nomination in 2020:

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Friday that foreign-born citizens should be allowed to run for president, a reform that would require amending the Constitution. "We are a country of immigrants. I think that it would be not a bad thing to try to figure out how to allow foreign-born people to become president," Albright told the Little Rock Rotary Club while in town to attend the opening of Bill Clinton's presidential library.

And the running mate? Jim Carrey, of course. You know, to lend credibility to the ticket.

Looking Back...and Forward

With two weeks' perspective on the election, things have become a little more clear. I didn't get misty-eyed when Kerry lost. That's because he didn't lose -- Bush won. To put things in perspective, Kerry got more votes in the loss than Reagan did in his '84 landslide, or, for that matter, any other presidential candidate. Besides Bush in '04, that is. Like it or not, Bush was a 60 million vote winner, and Kerry put up the greatest challenge to an incumbent president in history, just going by the raw numbers (and let's not forget, my early prediction of Bush winning the popular and losing the electoral almost came true with Ohio -- which still hasn't called a winner yet.) Surely the Bush hatred fuelled many of the 55 million-strong Kerry voters, and the JFK camp played it right, mostly. Kerry's was a stealth candidacy. The election was a referendum on the incumbent -- a phrase which has become cliche -- and in a normal election Kerry would have garnered enough votes to win just by not being the incumbent. Pundits are saying with hindsight that the stealth candidacy strategy was wrong, because it didn't work. I think it might have been the only way to win. After all, it was going to be close no matter which way it went; just don't screw up and hope events unseat a polarizing wartime president. That almost happened. As time has elapsed, we are seeing some conventional wisdom subside. On election day, the talking heads blathered on about how the youth vote failed to get out this year (false) and how the Christian Right was the dominant factor in Bush's reelection (also false, apparently.) I think it came down to two things: Kerry's incessant negativity and his inability to articulate and drive home a different strategy for fighting terrorism. I realize the first of these two problems is directly tied to the stealth candidacy -- how can you call attention to the shortcomings of the incumbent without being negative? True, but it went overboard. One phrase that stuck with me throughout the last month of the campaign was Bush's comment in one of the debates: "A plan is not a litany of complaints." I believe this resonated with the American voter, who seeks optimism in his presidential candidate, particularly in these troubled times. As for the latter problem, I can only imagine Kerry's failure to articulate a clear plan for being more hawkish -- yes, more -- on terrorism than the present administration was a result of internal political decisions gone awry. This stuff's starting to leak out of the Kerry campaign boat: the discord between the domestic and foreign policy fiends shaping Kerry's agenda and the general disagreement over what the campaign's message should be (and, not incidentally, Bob Shrum should never again be allowed near a presidential campaign). Kerry should have pounded upon Bush's inability to find bin Laden, promised to get tougher on Iraq's neighbors, argued for more rather than fewer troops in Iraq, made a guarantee that he would find Osama or quit in 2008. Who cares what Michael Moore thinks. Perhaps this perspective is just me casting the best light of the effort we put out on the ground in Nevada and elsewhere. Whatever. Fact is, without dominant get-out-the-vote efforts Kerry could have lost by 10 million votes. And if you think Bush has a mandate to pursue his agenda now -- or even if you don't -- just imagine the consequences of that outcome. Because you must understand that this election was an experiment. Karl Rove hypothesized that it would be possible for a Republican to win the White House by only catering to the right-wing base and ignoring, if not rebuffing altogether, independents and moderates. That basically happened: Kerry won the independent/moderate vote 55-45 or so and still lost the electoral and popular votes. You don't need me to tell you what will be the policy consequences of Dr. Rovenstein's successful experiment.

Under Construction

Another apology for slacking on the blog end, but I've been working on a new template for A's D because I am sick of those godawful dots Blogger gave us. This is a work in progress, but I think we're getting somewhere. Suggestions accepted, happily.

To Scotland...

Leaving tomorrow for a few beer on the Millenium Footpath and the Kingsway before a date with destiny and TFI Friday at the Strathclyde Union in Glasgow. Plenty happening politically, none of it surprising and most of it depressing. Three random thoughts to mull over during my escape for the weekend: (1) A surprisingly convincing argument from Andrew Sullivan on the proposal for a flat tax. I would say that Republican special interests make this a mere pipe dream - and I have long been opposed on progressive grounds - but how can you deny the truth of this quote: "The politician who allows every citizen to fill out her tax form on a postcard with a simple calculator will become one of the most popular in history." This idea, if combined with some type of consumption-based tax that would still hit the wealthy might be something we hear more of in the decades to come. (2) No surprise in any of the Bush Cabinet resignations/appointments. Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty. I admire the trait, but honestly, in a country that large I think you have to be willing to include experts who you or your family don't know from days in Texas. And if you want to run as the "War Time President" you think that some type of bipartisan effort would at least be attempted, especially with control over all 3 branches. "I serve at the pleasure of the President" was always a favorite West Wing line. Are Bush and Co. so insecure (or so damn righteously certain) that the very notion of dissent from their worldview is seen as horribly misguided, or worse, unpatriotic. I have never understood the fuss over Condi, Powell's resignation comes far too late, and you can easily predict the same type of mistakes will last well into the future. Why not, if competence is no longer a prerequisite for the jobs? (3) Kos - on fire lately as usual, especially on the future direction of the Democratic party. The continued attacks on Dean and his supporters as too "liberal" or "radical" must be infuriating for those on the ground-floor of the attacks. The Dean v. Vilsack race is just another example of the victory of small-minded, conservative (in the sense of completely risk-averse) elements in the party failing the historic traditions of their party. Check out recent posts here and here and here. My favorite of the many money quotes:

I always, always laugh when I hear one of these insiders talk about the "disaster" that a Dean chairmanship would wreak on the party. I mean, disaster compared to what? Being shut out from all levers of government? From the White House, Supreme Court, House, Senate, majority of governorships and majority of state legislatures? How about the disaster of three straight losing election cycles? That's not a freakin' disaster? Dean means reform. Simon Rosenberg means reform. There are probably other dark horse candidates out there who would mean reform. And that's what we need. Reform, not status quo. The status quo is untenable. I'm tired of losing, and that's the only thing the current gang has delivered.

I would be interested to know your thoughts on these points, Cooper, especially the last. Isn't it time Democrats started standing unabashedly for something again, instead of not being too scared to appear slightly to the left of the mainstream on some of these issues. I mean look at the success of the Republicans, despite their failures and the extremism of some of their stated policies. If you want to compete on the values question, you have to start favoring things, maybe even unpopular things, and be perceived as fighting FOR them. I am not optimistic about the upcoming DNC chairman outcome, but let's hope the Doctor prevails.

Czech Senate Elections

Now that the U.S. election has come and gone, it is time to broaden our horizons. I know absolutely nothing about the Czech political situation, but fortunately we have a correspondent with some expertise in the area. Over to consummate reporter/Vodka drinker Vaclav Podesil, a fellow I would like to convince to become a permanent contributor to this blog into the future: Some number (1/3 of 81 seats in the upper chamber of the parliament are being contested: Seats the governing Social-Democratic/"Labour" party won: 0 :-) Voter turnout in some districts: 6% Overall turnout: 18% 1 Friend's mother elected In the last elections to the European Parliament in June, the governing Social Democrats got a scant 8% and the governing "Union of Freedom"(federation of Bush asslickers, fifth columnists and losers/crooks) just over 1% votes, resulting in 0 mandates. Somehow, the "party" still managed to keep 3 ministers in the "new" government formed in August (2 of them on key positions). Seems that democracy does not work in the Czech basin. In any case, better than a two party system but.......the thing is that normally you don't have any choice between the tricksters- and that's why 20% still go communist, since the commies are the only ones who haven't got the chance to get dirty in privatization scandals and stuff in the 90's. Only now the situation has gone so bad - the government beeing unable to tackle basic economic issues (once underdeveloped Slovakia poised to takeover if no reforms are made soon), uneducated railway union leader-turned-interior minister-turned-prime minister creating a police state (Czech police forces poised to become the best paid in Europe, abuses of wiretapping rampant including leading oposition politicians).........tha tthe tide has turned and the majority is again voting for the Civics Democrats (ODS, conservative party). A star on the Czech political sky is our new "apolitical" president Vaclav Klaus, whose approval ratings reach almost 80% - despite his rather controversial past, now the only guy you can be proud of. *V.

All politics is local, so...

I'll start my analysis of what happened on election day, and what it means for American politics, by talking about the experience I had on the ground in Washoe County, Nevada. The biggest delay in making a blog entry on this topic is that there is truly too much material. I'll aim to be concise. As I blogged earlier, we had an uphill battle in Washoe. We were outregistered by 12,000 Republicans in the county. Still, we managed to lose by only 4 percent. Here were the results in 2000 and in 2004 (sorry for the bunched-up numbers, couldn't figure out how to reformat): 2000 Bush, George W. 52.02% 63,640 Gore, Al 42.59% 52,097 2004 BUSH, GEORGE W. 51.26% 81,545 KERRY, JOHN F. 47.05% 74,841 In other words, we got an additional 23,000 voters to the polls this time; the Bush team got an additional 18,000 voters. Given that this was Republican country, we more than pulled our weight. Still, we lost Nevada by the same margin Gore lost in 2000: by about 20,000 votes statewide. In order for Kerry to win, we needed to improve slightly in the rurals (where Gore got an abysmal 13% or so in 2000), come close to parity in Washoe (done), and dominate Clark County, or greater Las Vegas, a Dem stronghold. Let's see how Clark did: 2000 Bush, George W. 44.72% 170,932 Gore, Al 51.31% 196,100 2004 BUSH, GEORGE W. 46.22% 255,337 KERRY, JOHN F. 51.01% 281,767 Basically the same margin of victory as before. The Republicans got 84,000 more voters to the polls, and Team Kerry got 85,000 more to the polls, nearly replicating the 15,000 margin of victory. Not enough for the statewide win. I'm not pinning blame on the Clark County folks -- they obviously would have had a difficult time making up a 20,000 vote difference statewide singlehandedly. But a Democratic presidential candidate must find a way to make this formula work to take Nevada's 5 -- and growing -- electoral votes.

"Massive"

One more quick one. Today David Frum says this in his commentary about the Fallujah offensive:

"What is to come we cannot know. But we can know this: Fully aware of the stakes, American voters massively rejected the candidate who promised to put an end to battles like Fallujah--and massively voted in the candidate who pledged to do whatever was necessary to win these battles." (emphasis added)

Is he referring to the same election that I watched last Tuesday? 51% to 48% - the result contingent overnight on the results in Ohio - is "massive"? Even putting aside the fact that he is horribly mischaracterizing the nature of the choice the voters faced, as Andrew Sullivan notes, what absurd dictionary is he using? This just in - on the weekend, Mr. Frum caught a "massive" number of "massive" salmon. And (okay, we understand the point... just don't go there -ed.)

... so start it with Dean's election as Chairman

I have to say I have been hoping the Good Doctor would assume this role for some time. I know some will scoff at Dean's resurgence in a prominent role, and the Right will spin it as another example of the Democrats drifting further left and out-of-touch. But that is wrongheaded and misunderstands the role of the DNC Chair - as well as Dean's political record as Governor, as we know. The Chairman is SUPPOSED to be an unabashed partisan, a committed salesman, and also a slick fundraiser. I never found McAullife convincing, while Dean has been tireless in continuing his involvement with the Democratic party since conceding the nomination - arguably he has been running a parallel organization just as successfully with Democracy for America. He is an asset and this would be the best way to utilize him. It would also guarantee that he does not run for the Presidential nomination in 2008, a race he cannot hope to win anyway. It would also send a message - ever since his campaign started, Dean spoke passionately about standing up for core "Democratic" values, unapologetically and confidently. The Democrats need that morale boost now more than ever. And he also agrees that the party needs to fight ever fight, challenging Tom Delay, Marilyn Musgrave, even when conventional wisdom says the races are unwinnable. And Blogforamerica.com was also where I first discovered the existence of blogs, so colour me sentimental for wanting to see Dean in a semi-prominent position. WHEW - plenty of thoughts there for you to mull on your anticipated return to the blogosphere, Tim. Combined with your experience in the Vegas snow, it should prove for good reading, so I will turn Ahab over to you for the next few days. Looking forward to your thoughts and reactions, as always.

For Every Cloud...

And welcome back, old friend. It was starting to get lonely around this message board, and I wondered if you hadn't gone for broke and lost everything on the poker tables in a post-election funk. Glad to hear you are back in Canada and I look forward to arriving in Toronto myself on the evening of December 5th for the full debriefing. In the meantime, back to political news and what to say in the aftermath of Bush's big win. I took a few days off in an attempt to stay away from over-analysis of the defeat and pointless moping about the future course of events. Ultimately, my search for silver linings has yielded two main points gleaned from the British press: (1) America's choice may have painted Blair into a corner, forcing him to make a "one-or-the-other" decision about Britain's long-term future that he cannot easily escape. Does this lie within the transatlantic alliance forged in the fire of Iraq, or instead with the United Kingdom as the critical 3rd spoke in the wheelhouse of much-maligned "Old" Europe? Given the great disdain that British voters hold for Bush, how long can Labour continue to walk the fine line between the two? Europe is at a true crossroads these days and Bush's election may just have provided the necessary tipping point. Witness the truly bizarre reaction of Michael Howard, the British Tory Leader, in refusing to even congratulate the re-elected President! See this Guardian piece by Jackie Ashley for the full analysis, well captured in this quote buried 3/4 of the way down: "Despair about Bush could lead to a revival of Europeanism and make it easier for Labour and Lib Dem politicians to win referendums, both on the constitution and perhaps even on the euro." An interesting thought, and some optimism for those looking to a united Europe to offset American hegemony down the road. Remember that conversation about the future of Europe in Papa's Pub, of Port Hawksbury fame? (2) On the American domestic front, I also have to admit doubts about the ability of Kerry to govern effectively. Never my choice or a particularly strong candidate for the Presidency, he would have had an especially difficult job in handling the mess created by Bush. Now Bush can truly be said to "own" his legacy. It is going to be difficult to blame a falling dollar, growing trade deficit, rising price of oil, lukewarm job growth (etc...) all on the "recession" that was "inherited" from Clinton in 2000. Republicans could have exploited these difficulties in the 2006 midterms (the truth never posing a barrier) and the Democrats would likely have a difficult time re-electing Kerry in 2008, ushering in a true era of Republican dominance that Rove claims to seek. And imagine the fallout of a terrorist attack on a Democratic President's watch. The proper historical parallel might be a British one, best synthesized in the Times (British version, not NY) by Anatole Kaletsky. According to this perspective, Kerry plays Neil Kinnock to a future Democratic Tony Blair: "The electorate’s decision to let Mr Bush clear up his own messes does not just threaten the incumbent with poetic justice; more importantly it offers a reprieve from a potential death sentence on the Democrats." Analogies - I know, I know, imperfect - but it is a cogent and forceful argument with great merit. As instapundit always says, read the whole thing. SO - thoughts of this sort certainly make the grieving process easier. The truth is, Bush's electoral victory was helped immensely by his very incompetence. It trapped Kerry in a box - Iraq was in such a botched state that staying the course was the only real option, and the massive budget deficits made new and innovative economic/social proposals that much more difficult. But all that said, I am not American and Bush is not my country's leader. I do feel great empathy for the 48% of those who voted against, and for the tireless efforts and enthusiasm of the left-wing blogosphere, the inspired Deaniacs I met in New Hampshire in January 2004, a guy from Boston who toured the UN in Geneva with me this September, your compatriots in Nevada, and all the rest. It will be a long four years ahead...

Guy Fawkes' Fireworks

Say one thing about the English, they love their traditions. And Guy Fawkes Day is a wonderful one at that - its origins political and impromptu, fun for the kids while imparting a classic historical message of vigilence and disaster averted. For those interested in the details, here is both a nice contemporary summary and the transcript of the original 1605 case (with its priceless ancient rhetoric). But one observation. The fireworks and bonfire night are to be celebrated on the night of November 5th, which this year occurred last Friday. Nevertheless, for days and days afterward you can STILL here people firing off incessant explosives that are quite simply annoying. Surely 4 nights of this is overkill. Like recovering from Hogmanay in Edinburgh, only to continue bumping into drunken tourists on January 4th who still think it is New Year's Eve. Save those fireworks for next year, people. And see if you cannot get the date right in firing them off this time.

back

Just got back to T-Dot after a 3,000 mile road trip through what some are now calling "Jesusland." (Though Vegas should probably not be counted in that category.) I obviously have plenty of thoughts after such a long, meditative drive. All you need to know about the election aftermath was that it snowed like hell in Reno on Nov. 3, and I could think of no more appropriate weather for the mood we were all in. Will blog tomorrow. Just wanted to let y'all know I was still kicking and have an opinion or two to share.

Veterans for Flags

This is ridiculous. Though if Rove was spinning for the Bloq, I am sure he would challenge the service records of those requesting the flags to undermine the request. Both Friedman (unsurprisingly) and Dowd (surprisingly) are great reads this Sunday afternoon.

Life after Politics

Giving up blogging cold turkey is difficult, especially when you keep seeing things buried in the English papers that deserve broadcast to the wider public... so despite the election, life goes on, especially in the world of sport. Here the news is abuzz with Paula Radcliffe in the NY marathon today. Will she rise or fall? And it seems the Gunners are in a race for the Premiership. Where was Hornby for the latest shocker at Selhurst Park against, wait for it, Crystal Palace? Wonderful article on the game in the Observer but the money quotes are the opening and closing paragraphs. The last two sentences especially, perhaps the best defence of a drawn result I have yet come across:

"The Americans hate it - like kissing your sister, they say, so unsatisfying do they deem it - but the draw in sport can be an honorable achievement. Arsenal will not see it as such, as they ceded the Premiership leadership, but Crystal Palace certainly should." ... "Within another minute Palace should have been ahead, this time Lakis blazing the ball over from close range after Johnson had skiped past Cole and crossed low. Arsenal had a couple of chances to win the game themselves, Kiraly twice coming to the rescue, with a one-handed savefrom the substitute Robin van Persie's low shot then reaching the same player's chip after Reyes had scooped a neat ball into his path. It would have been unjust, however. Long live the draw."

Unjust, indeed.

The End

Sorry that the phone call died, my friend. Have no motivation to register anything but abject disappointment at the sight of Karen Hughes and the rest celebrating another duplicitous fleece of the American people. It kills me. Home to Toronto on December 5th for the post-mortem. Remember the Red Sox. In killing time today, I popped into "Finding Neverland" and realized at one point that great art will continue beyond politics. But let us never lose such an important contest. And let us never need to back such a candidate. Four more years of Bush will be hard to stand... But... think of the new blog name, and we will launch into realtime with Sam Moon in 2005. Have a good one in Reno. j.

Finally, the Day is Here

Here we go. Best of luck to you and all the Democratic stormtroopers, Cooper. I am heading off to take a nap now in hopes of pulling the all-nighter at either St. Anthony's or St. John's with a few Stella in hand and optimism at heart. Much more on the flipside when everything shakes out. Until then, this is an open thread (I know we have no readers, I just always wanted to post that sentence). UPDATE: Just received this email from an Aussie friend here at Oxford, which says it all. Should be an entertaining/emotional night, regardless of the outcome:

It's a curious feature of life as a political hack/junkie that no matter how objective and hard headed you are able to be every other day in the political cycle, come election day, you become outrageously optmistic that right (I mean left) will prevail. And you just want to scream your lungs out. I'm pumped. See you tonight.

A Hopeful Guess

RealClearPolitics has a roundup of the pundits Electoral College predictions here. I suppose now is as good a time as any to throw my thoughts out there as well, while at the same time confessing that the electoral projection motto of danieldrezner.com is spot on: "I don't know who's going to win -- and you don't know either." On that note, let's get to this apparatchik's two cents. Using the RealClearPolitics battleground states framework for convenience, I award Kerry his 10 solid states first [CA, CT, DE, IL, MD, MA, NY, RI, VT, DC] for the total of 149. I cannot see him losing any of his 6 leaning states either [HI, ME, MI, NJ, OR, WA], pushing him up to 207. As for Bush, give him his 22 solid states [AL, AK, AZ, GA, ID, IN, KS, KY, LA, MS, MT, NC, NE, ND, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WY] for a total of 191. The President's leaning states present a more interesting mix, as the night’s surprise could easily be in Arkansas, Colorado, or even Nevada. For the sake of some fun, and in hopes of an extra riotous celebration for the co-author of this blog, I am going to go ahead throw Nevada’s 5 EVs down on Kerry’s side of the ledger to be different. So, as we shift the focus to the 8 toss-up states remaining, the score stands at 212 for Kerry and 222 for the President. Give New Mexico to Bush and New Hampshire to Kerry and the score moves up to 216 v. 227. Pennsylvania will go blue, as will Minnesota, upping the challenger's total by 31 to 247. How does Kerry get to 270 from here - because let’s face it, in a race this close everyone except Tucker Carlson wants to predict a win for their favored candidate (did Stewart soften him up after all?). Slate's scorecard has the cogent answer, that it must be either through the Midwest or with Florida. My scepticism gives the Bush Brothers Florida, but this time it won't be enough. Ohio falls to the Democrats, as do both Wisconsin and Iowa, and Kerry becomes the 44th President in January with 284 Electoral votes, the curse of the Redskins continues to haunt the incumbent, and still no Republican can hope to win the White House without Ohio. I hope.

"Remember the Red Sox"

An extremely fine column by David Broder in the Post today on the joy of covering an actual election "race" and why democracies need these true contests. Say this for the blogosphere, it certainly is far better equipped to educate political junkies on the intricacies of the House and Senate races that matter. The influence in terms of funds, free advice, resources, and simple encouragement has helped draw my attention to small, longshot challenges such as Morrison in TX-22 and Seemann in OH-16. Indeed, forcing Delay to campaign is healthy. Broder signs off with this:

A closing personal thought: Emotions are running high about this presidential choice. Take a moment, before you vote, to remind yourself that this republic has weathered worse storms and, thanks to the Constitution, has never failed to recover its bearings and adhere to its principles. Resolve not to let the defeat of your favorite candidate shatter your faith in America or turn you away from politics. There will be another day. Remember the Red Sox.

Wise words that I will take to heart throughout the early morning hours of November 3rd as I hope so fervently for the defeat of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and co.

Just Not A Good President

Chris Suellentrop's endorsement for Kerry from Slate (scroll to the update) is one I absolutely agree with, in the final analysis - even if it might be closer to the Cooper reason for flouting old Yalie ties. There are certainly times when just watching Bush speak can get me visibly irate. And even if I have said it over drunken exchanges in the Hofbrau House or the Generator Bar or some pizza place in Concord, I don't really "HATE" Bush - though I do sometimes feel this gut-wrenching frustration with his smirking and unbearable inability to see the errors of his ways. But this, I hope, remains a classic summary of my recurring thoughts on why Bush will ultimately lose this election. And if you were to appeal to my better angels, it is why I hope so fervently for Bush's defeat:

... This is a one-issue election for me. I don't hate President Bush. I think he's well-intentioned and a good man. He's just not a good president.

Amen.

McCain for President?

Not much to say, just read it. Fascinating. We could be blogging this election well after 11/02...

Mr. Shaw's Intelligence

Well, it is clear that all eyes should be on Drudge throughout the coming days, as we await the final pieces of the campaign puzzle. And what they could be is any body’s guess. Such as this morning's revelation:

Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.

All the makings of a classic Rove-style leak – given to the friendly Washington Times, the official-sounding yet cryptic title of the informant - deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security – the last minute nature of the story, and a message deftly tailored to both deflect away attacks on the President over the missing explosives and bolster the idea that unilateralism in necessary in dangerous times. That said, I doubt it will have any effect. Kerry can dodge this one easily by pointing to Putin’s recent bold endorsement of Bush. The Senator can also turn the tables easily again by using it as yet another symbol of the ineptness of the Bush administration to understand the situation on the ground and to control the flow of WMD that the war was designed to secure. Again, Sullivan is essential reading on this score, as he continues to catalogue the cornucopia of errors made throughout the conduct of this war. Sorry Rove, this new "recently obtained reliable information" of Mr. Shaw's will not do much to help your cause. Better luck tomorrow.

THIS is the spin?

Saw this on the morning news (we're on Pacific time out here), and couldn't believe it. Perhaps the hypocritical money quote of the campaign. I'm just going to link and copy and paste Kos because I don't have the time. Just consider this: it doesn't matter much what you thought of the war in Iraq, this is an idiotic statement to use to attack your opponent. Gen. Wesley Clark agrees with Bush. Jumping to conclusions is bad. (Clark writes:)

Today George W. Bush made a very compelling and thoughtful argument for why he should not be reelected. In his own words, he told the American people that "... a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your Commander in Chief".

President Bush couldn't be more right. He jumped to conclusions about any connection between Saddam Hussein and 911. He jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction. He jumped to conclusions about the mission being accomplished. He jumped to conclusions about how we had enough troops on the ground to win the peace. And because he jumped to conclusions, terrorists and insurgents in Iraq may very well have their hands on powerful explosives to attack our troops, we are stuck in Iraq without a plan to win the peace, and Americans are less safe both at home and abroad.

By doing all these things, he broke faith with our men and women in uniform. He has let them down. George W. Bush is unfit to be our Commander in Chief.

Looking up from the ground level

The thing about working for a campaign, as opposed to following it through the media, is that your perspective reverses. Before I came to Nevada I followed the polls every day, scoured the wires for the latest stories and read every blog out there. Now I do none of those things. In fact, nobody on the Kerry staff here seems to follow the macro situation much at all. We're way too focused on the hour-to-hour, day-to-day business of getting the vote out and ensuring that our town, county and state vote Kerry. I guess it's reflective of the philosophy that we only worry about what we have control over. Forgive the obvious observation to those who have done this sort of thing before, but I find it fascinating. The macro news trickles in. In the last two days we heard that William Rehnquist was in the hospital, that 380 tons of explosives have gone missing, and that Allawi is pissed with the Bush administration. There's barely enough time to confirm these stories, let alone think about what they all mean. Even as I write this I don't have access to the internet; I'm writing it on my laptop in a condo on Lake Tahoe (thank you, DNC, for the free accomodation). The point is, it's tough to blog on what's going on out there, so I'm going to stick to writing what I know. Should be more fun that way anyway. On E-Day I'll be at Dem HQ in Reno, coordinating precinct efforts and tallying interrim voting figures. It looks like a pretty slick operation, and I'm just being plugged in there. Might even get to blog on the day.

Bring it Home, Cooper

One final thought for the evening. Against (perhaps) my better judgment, I just plunked down $20 on Kerry to win Nevada at odds of 2.62 - for the mathematicians out there, it pays $52.40. So I will be watching the state closely on election night and hope to see some spectacularity arise from the efforts of ahabs' better (other?) half. Let it ride indeed. Keep those news reports coming where possible.

"You are not authorized to view this page"

For some reason, I have been unable to access www.georgewbush.com for the last 10 hours or so. Bizarre. Just looking for some of the Republican campaign's latest ads, but no dice. This is the Internet Explorer message in its entirety:

You might not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials you supplied. If you believe you should be able to view this directory or page, please try to contact the Web site by using any e-mail address or phone number that may be listed on the http://www.georgewbush.com/ home page.

I wonder the reason. Oxford's intranet perhaps? Strange.

Hurry Up and Wait

Let me fire out a quick (if obvious) observation from today's perusal through the partisan blogosphere. Not only do both sides think they are winning conclusively at the moment, but both sides think their man will win for the same reason: each thinks it will grab the support of the solitary undecided alone in the voting booth. Will these inscrutable individuals follow the pattern indicated by the "incumbent rule" and vote Kerry, or will they ultimately fall back to what we may call the "post 9/11 rule" and simply chose the devil they know and trust on Terror? (maybe we could also call this the "Kerry is just a disappointing candidate" rule, but that is a rant for another time...) Conventional Wisdom has certainly been turned on its head enough times during this campaign season, so it is understandable that those following this closely have grounds to believe what they want to believe. One thing is for certain, though. I am damn ready for November 2nd to arrive. I have to agree with Daily Telegraph columnist Andrew Marr today, when he writes:

"No one at Westminster's quite concentrating this week. Not properly. We're all like schoolchildren pretending to be studying the book while furtively staring at the gripping scene through the window - in this case, the presidential election."

It is a struggle, this hurrying up to wait, with all the arguments said and my inability to participate in the GOTV operations from overseas. All the hoopla and micro-analysis about these missing explosives just seems so minor in the grand scheme of things. Basically, I don't think we are likely to know anymore about the likely outcome of this election on November 1st than we know today. The tracking polls will keep bouncing around in the margin of error, the useless electoral college predictors will shift nightly based on a 1-2% flip in Florida or Ohio, and both sides will continue to claim they have the momentum right up until (and through) the exit polls and counting of the ballots. So in the mean time, I am left wondering... just how are those fickle undecideds going to break? And will the October surprise end up being the utter lack of any surprise?

Optimism from Dublin

Spent the weekend on the Emerald Isle cheering on my mother and Jill Leblanc in the running of the 25th annual Dublin marathon. What an event, and what a city. Over 10,000 runners from 60+ countries, and watching wave after wave at the finish line made you proud to be a human being. On the political front, today's international papers have some healthy looking photos of Kerry campaigning with the Big Dog, and I have to say that the "comeback" narrative is building up appropriate steam. Clinton's heart troubles may actually turn out to play well for the campaign, since it buys a day or two of free coverage at the optimal time, and plays right into the story of "whatever sacrifices it takes to take out Bush and get our country on the right track". Stories like that, and the New Yorker set to make its first Presidential endorsement in its 80 year history, and you can feel the momentum building a continent away. The situation for Kerry now seems ideal, just where he wants to be with Nader reduced to a virtual non-factor, Bush under the critical 50% barrier, and a race still so close that all those new voters will feel like it matters. Since recovering the House or Senate is unlikely this time around (though the Senate does offer some tantalizing possibilities), people are rightfully realizing just what is at stake. In the longest election cycle in Presidential history, the arguments have all been made and it is just a matter of sprinting those final few kilometers to the finish. I am optimistic that Kerry may (finally) be closing the deal. Have you ever seen crowds for political events that Kerry is drawing? So - enjoy the phonecalls, the door knocking, the cheap campaign grub, and the frenetic pace in the hours ahead. It is coming down to the wire... Kerry's people know what they are doing and have finally recovered from the malaise of August. Make not mistake, this will be a tough fight that is likely to extend into recounts, but I like the chances of a Democratic victory. As Picard would say, "Make it so." ˇ

Washoe and beyond

The inside buzz has us up in early polling around the state, and both our and the Republican internal polls have Kerry up by a couple of points -- and that was before Friday's rally. But this will still be a close one, possibly decided by a few hundred votes. The 5 EVs will come down to the ground game. Last time out Bush beat Gore by 20,000 votes statewide, a result attributed in no small part to the lack of energetic get out the vote efforts by the Democrats. No longer. Media shots, and casual observation, of the Washoe Country Republican office show an empty facility. Our office is buzzing. We've got hundreds of volunteers who come down from California on the weekend and who will be helping out on election day. Among those volunteers are lawyers who have volunteered to observe polling stations during the early voting and on election day. There has been national news made of the potential challenges to individuals identified as Democrats voting in Nevada. It's still unclear what merits these challenges have, but the Nevada election authorities seem pretty intent on allowing everyone to vote. There was concern a few weeks ago about a Republican firm registering voters and subsequently shredding the registration forms. My understanding is that a court ruled those people who believe their registrations were shredded can have their petitions to vote considered on an individual basis. Hopefully that won't be a major issue as we approach the election. We have word from on high that the Democrats do indeed have 10,000 lawyers at the ready, including 50 of the best lawyers in the country staying at the Chicago Airport Hilton on election day with four Learjets ready to take them wherever they're needed. Terry McAuliffe promised that he wouldn't roll over and die like the Gore people did last time. My prediction is that Kerry will win the state by a nose, but it is truly a toss-up. Our ground game is dominant, the demographic trends look good, and the close polls don't reflect all the newly registered voters. In a state where the margin of victory will be in all likelihood under 10,000, these are important factors. In the larger scheme of this election, Nevada is not as key as Ohio and Florida. But it would be welcome to either candidate should things go poorly in the three big swings and the Midwest. And in a very close overall electoral vote scenario, it could be the difference between victory and defeat.

Back from the blog hiatus

It's been a week since we got into Reno, and what a hell of a week. Let me share some observations I've made since arriving, on the election in general, the situation in Nevada, and other miscellany. Not all necessarily in the same post. First off, we couldn't have had a more action packed first week. Because of Nevada's swing state status, they're starting to send in some high-profile Democrats and their supporters. We've seen Greg Meeks (D-NY), Terry McAuliffe and, of course, John Kerry, who had his first rally of the campaign in northern Nevada on Friday. The latter was a hell of an event, and I got to help Kerry's crack advance staff organize it. As a result, four days into the foray to Nevada, I've met a couple of top Democratic ops and had a handshake and photo with a certain senator from Massachusetts. Here's a basic primer on the election in Nevada. The salient points: Nevada voted for Clinton twice, but voted Bush over Gore. A local issue helped that happen, and may help Kerry this time -- some in Washington (read:Bush) want to dispose of radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain in Nevada, an area which has been demonstrated to lie above several earthquake faults and be close to the water table. The two big population centers of Nevada are Clark County (Las Vegas) and Washoe County (Reno and carson City). Clark is, like many urban centers around the nation, heavily democratic. Washoe went for Bush last time and is considered to have a pretty sizable advantage in Republican registration. The rurals, essentially everything outside the Reno and Vegas areas, are a total loss for the Democrats (Gore won something like 12 percent in the rurals in 2000, absolutely pathetic.) The demographics here are pretty interesting. The truth is that nobody really has a handle on them. We know that the largest minority in the state is Hispanic, around 20-25% of the population and that there are few blacks here. We also know that there has been a huge influx of Californians who have come to Nevada in the last four years. Both of these trends bode well for Kerry. The economy is not a huge issue here; part of the reason so many Californians have moved here is that Nevada has added jobs in the last four years (after Vegas recovered post-9/11), and has an unemployment rate of 3.9 percent. Last time out Nevada was 48th in the nation in voter participation, at around 46%, with an even lower youth vote turnout. That will change this time around. The Democrats here have stepped up their voter registration big time, and though I can't share the results here, it will make a significant difference. Nevada has early voting, which started last week, so it won't all come down to craziness on Nov. 2. But a lot of it will. Oh yeah, and it's pronounced NUH-V-ADD-UH, not NUH-V-ODD-UH; think "Nevattitude" for the pronunciation. The locals get pissed when you pronounce it incorrectly. Trust me. The scenario for a Kerry victory goes something like this: win Clark County by a large margin, in the 60-40 territory. Hold our own in Washoe County (we're polling now at a 10-point loss, though we think it's closer, but even that would be closer than last time), to the tune of a 53-47 loss or better; and improve slightly in the rurals, to maybe 16-17 points. Can we do it? read on.

Kinsella

After the annoying bits of punditry coming from Chretien's hack, I thought it important to send him an email regarding the actual state of the race. For those not following, he has shown elation about a poll a few days ago that showed Kerry ahead in the electoral college, but is now hanging his head based on one state swinging the other way based on a slight change in the margin of error that shifted in another poll. I like his boldness on other fronts, but his work outside a war room (at least this cycle) has to be classified as outright ridiculous. Anyway, here is my drunken email to him. Dublin Tomorrow, and as my new buddy Brian texted me tonight - let's hope the Craic is mighty there: "why the long face Kinsella? Your political analysis is so crazily varied, though admittedly it is always interesting to see your perspective, i certainly don't look to you for predictive value. have faith, old man. Kerry wins this election - Kerry won the first debate, so contrary to your analysis, and he will carry the momentum through the undecideds. The world needs it. Of all people, you should be smart enough to understand these dynamics. As opposed to relying on some random electoral college prediction site run by an undergrad or whatever (how about reading kos or mydd or atrios or sullivan or talkingpoints memo or....) Get with it buddy! The election of our time, and you still mourn for Chretien? Let's be positive and happily rid the world of this administration... if I were not overseas, I would be in Ohio working hard, not working the pessimism. Livestrong. james macduff."

Shatner's Glory

The best song of 2004 - it makes me even think that I could survive a Bush victory. But let's GOTV ladies and gents, regardless. You know who you are: "She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge. She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College. That's where I, caught her eye. She told me that her Dad was loaded. I said, in that case I'll have a rum and coca-cola. She said fine, and in thirty seconds time she said, I want to live like common people. I want to do whatever common people do. I want to sleep with common people. I want to sleep with common people, like you. Well, what else could I do? I said, I'll see what I can do. I took her to a supermarket. I don't know why, but I had to start it somewhere, so it started there. I said, pretend you've got no money. She just laughed, and said oh you're so funny. I said, yeah? Well, I can't see anyone else smiling in here. Are you sure you want to live like common people? You want to see whatever common people see? You want to sleep with common people? You want to sleep with common people, like me? But, she didn't understand, [Jarvis]She just smiled and held my hand. Rent a flat above a shop. Cut your hair and get a job.Smoke some fags and play some pool. Pretend you never went to school. But still, you'll never get it right. When you're lying in bed at night, watching roaches climb the wall, if you called your Dad he could stop it all. Yeah. [Shatner] You'll never live like common people. You'll never do whatever common people do. You'll never fail like common people. You'll never watch your life slide out of view, and dance and drink and screw [Jarvis and Shatner] because there's nothing else to do.[Shatner and Chorus] Sing along with the common people. Sing along, and it might just get you thru.'[Chorus] Laugh along with the common people.[Shatner and Chorus]Laugh along, even though they're laughing at you [Shatner] and the stupid things that you do'cause you think that poor is cool.[Jarvis] Like a dog lying in a corner, they'll bite you and never warn you.Look out. [Shatner] They'll tear your insides out'cause everybody hates a tourist.[Jarvis] 'Cause Everybody hates a tourist, especially one who thinksit's all such a laugh.[Shatner]Yeah, and the chip stains' grease will come out in the bath.[Shatner and Jarvis]You will never understandhow it feels to live your life with no meaning or control, and with nowhere left to go. You're amazed that they exist and they burn so bright, while you can only wonder why.Rent a flat above a shop.Cut your hair and get a job. Smoke some fags and play some pool. Pretend you never went to school. But still, you'll never get it right.'Cause When you're lying in bed at night[Shatner]watching roaches climb the wall, if you called your Dad he could stop it all.Yeah.You'll never live like common people[Shatner and Jarvis]You'll never do what common people do.You'll never fail like common people.You'll never watch your life slide out of view and dance and drink and screw, because there's nothing else to do. [Chorus]I want to sing with common people, like you. I want to sing with common people, like you. I want to sing with common people, like you. http://pealco.net/archives/2004/10/13/has_been Boom Boom Baby.

The Money Walk v. Heiny Heinz

Oh my - the creativity and joy of the Internet knows no bounds. Check out this miniclip that I found via Jonah Goldberg at the Corner. Priceless. You should try and find a computer in which you can get the background music for full effect. The most difficult question: do you prefer Bush's Money Walk or Kerry's Heiny Heinz? It is indeed a tough vote. I give Kerry the win on overall points, but that Money Walk might be the most classic of the 6 moves...

Checking The Odds

Sportsinteraction weighs in this morning with their take on the state of the election: STATES Florida - Bush 1.90; Kerry 1.80 Iowa - Bush 1.83; Kerry 1.83 Minnesota - Bush 2.10; Kerry 1.66 Nevada - Bush 1.72; Kerry 2.00 New Hampshire - Bush 2.00; Kerry 1.72 New Mexico - Bush 1.83; Kerry 1.83 Ohio - Bush 1.72; Kerry 2.00 Wisconsin - Bush 1.83; Kerry 1.83 OVERALL Popular Vote - Bush 1.83; Kerry 1.83 Presidency - Bush 1.61; Kerry 2.20 SPECIALS Supreme Court Intervenes for any reason - 6.00 Election Postponed for any reason - 26.00 Electoral College Tie - 34.00 Either Candidate Withdraws - 100.00 (all odds current as of 8:30AM EST on October 21st) So what does this bookie like? I have refused to bet on Kerry's outright victory in fear of jinxing the proceedings, though those odds are pretty tempting given the toss-up state of the race. At this point I will hold out for some more polls until I lay down a series of $20 bets, but for now I particularly like Kerry in New Hampshire and Ohio at these prices. Florida still scares me, I am resigned to think the Bushies will find a way to take it again. Care to put your money on your work in Nevada? And on that note, how does this analysis stack up to what you are seeing on the ground? Sounds like campaigning/canvassing in Reno and then getting out the vote in Vegas might be your game plan... I imagine you have already had the crash course on Yucca mountain. Lay on!

The Trip

A quick word or two here about the road trip to Reno, which was easily the longest I've driven in a weekend in my life. Luckily I was accompanied by my buddy Graham, who has signed on to this quixotic quest. Started last Saturday, got here Monday night. The route: Toronto, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada. Stopped one night in Des Moines (the most boring city on earth? NO nightlife on Saturday, and I don't care what Kerouac said about Des Moines having the world's prettiest girls: he clearly wrote that 40 years ago) and Salt Lake City (beautiful, but scarily Mormon-cultish). No surprises: the midwest is flat flat flat, the Rockies are rocky (that John Denver wasn't full of shit after all), and gas truly is consistently over $2 a gallon all across this great land. Reno is "The Biggest Little City on Earth", full of brassy, classy and seedy casinos. Even now, after two days here, I haven't had the chance to play cards, but I will. Unbelievably, we're staying in a condo right across the California border in Lake Tahoe, a donation by some wealthy Dem for the course of the campaign. More unbelievably, northern Nevada is freezing. It snowed today, and it will snow the next couple of days; so much so that we couldn't get to the condo because we didn't have the requisite snow chains on the car. Forget about what you know from the movies about Nevada desert weather. Can't wait to get to Vegas, if only for that reason. Totals: 2490 miles/circa 4000km; 35+ hours driving; two nights; $230 US in gas. And hopefully 5 electoral votes for KE '04. But that analysis comes later.

Safire on "Purveyors of Panic"

As if anticipating last night's post, William Safire has a column this morning entitled "The Year of Fear." But his indictment focuses on the Fear Room of the Democrats, not the Republicans. He charges that the Kerry camp is intentionally arousing fears on various fronts - from social security, to that "internets" rumour of a draft, to the flu vaccine shortage. I would respond to this simply by saying that these attacks are legitimate, as they all flow directly from the consequences of the inept Bush administration. Worried about the government's continued ability to fund social security? Maybe, thanks to colossal budget deficits with no end in sight. Worried about a draft? Maybe, since you agree with Tim Ryan and his October 5th speech on the House floor that the Bush administration's colossal mishandling of the war combined with their various misleading statements makes it difficult to be certain what will happen. Worried about the flu vaccine? Maybe, since Bush has bungled it so badly even he admits that he won't be getting one. And on... Contrast this with the Republicans. Unable to defend any policy of the past four years (except maybe "Leave No Child Left Behind" as the panacea that will save jobs), they are the ones squarely on the attack. Look no further than Drudge's frontpage and Cheney's latest comments on a Nuke Threat:

"Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday raised the possibility of terrorists bombing U.S. cities with nuclear weapons and questioned whether Sen. John Kerry could combat such an "ultimate threat ... "

Forget that the Bush record on preventing this very type of "ultimate threat" is rather terrible. But again, it is to provoke the basest fear - "you are not safe with John Kerry in the White House." As bad as Bush is on every issue, you better vote for him or the terrorists win. Argh. Safire concludes:

"My advice to voters in this political Year of Fear, as well as to journalists and our sources, is from Joshua 1:9: "Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed." Courage and freedom will win, and the purveyors of panic will lose."

I hope so.

Accountability, not Fear

This election is remarkable not only for its intense polarization, but for the interesting schism between the conservative case for Kerry and the "one-issue" voter for Bush. I have read countless blogger posts, online articles, and even British newspapers where people claim to be voting for Bush solely based on the esoteric “War on Terror”. It is such a prevalent argument - to link anything would be rather superfluous. You have surely come across it. Well summarized by the "Security Mom" for Bush, for example. Or similar to the outrageous claims of Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit that he is an objective independent voting solely on Terror, when he can write something as blatantly hyperbolic as this:

"I think that electing John F. Kerry at this juncture would be like electing the ugly bastard child of Jimmy Carter and Millard Fillmore -- in 1940. (I could be wrong, of course, and if Kerry should happen to be elected, I fervently hope to be proven so. But that's how it seems to me. I mean, Jesus, just look at the guy.)"

"Just look at the guy"? Shocking even as hyperbole... but then again, Instapundit is one of the only guys in the world who dreams of a Lieberman/Cheney ticket as the dream team. That says a lot. In contrast, over the past few days here at Oxford, I have argued to various people that if given the straight-up choice, I would vote for an ashtray, a dog, or my beer before this President (in all seriousness!), for the sole reason of purging this ideological administration from the White House. I cannot imagine it getting worse, on a whole host of issues across the board. So could someone please explain why swagger and bluster always trumps careful nuance and strategic thinking in foreign policy, and how this can also trump everything else that goes into voting in the most critical election of modern times? As if Kerry would abandon the "War on Terror" and stand idly by while the terrorists regroup and make the world less safe!! Please!! To me, this seems to be the most intellectually bankrupt (if the only) argument in favour of Bush - it is worse than fearmongering, since it is no argument at all. Okay, Bush may be wrong or terrible. But sorry, no one else can do it. In a different context, I have heard this ridiculous logic from others, such as Paul Martin’s Liberals. An affront to democracy. From my perspective, the real vital contribution that Andrew Sullivan has made to the debate is his continued damning indictment and persistent criticism of the administration's ACTUAL CONDUCT of this war. And by all accounts it has been horrendous. I agree that not bringing up Abu Gharib in the debates was a mistake, though it probably should have emerged as a question from the moderators, as opposed to asking the candidates about their faith or their wives. But the point remains, just because Bush talks tough does not mean he is being effective! Even the West Wing offered a more insightful look at the ongoing problems and complexities of the ongoing threat of Islamic terror in the closing episodes of last season. And it is a damn TV show. Since it is baseball season, permit me a simple analogy - if only if it gives me an excuse to direct you to Boswell's superb article on the Red Sox two extra inning victories in the Post. It is like your pitcher is floundering about on the mound, serving up hanging sliders, almost sure to throw the game… but God forbid the idea of bringing in a reliever – he might be worse! Only the starter can complete the game? Uh, in a word, wrong. [update: 4-2 Sox and Comeback Kerry will be ecstatic. Bring on Game 7. Ya gotta believe!] In New Hampshire, as January 27th approached, we began posting new signs all around Concord: "Vote Hope, not Fear." I still think that is basically the choice here. Kerry's continuing job in the last two weeks is just to convince voters that they can trust him, that they can begin to hope again for the great restoration of American values that Dean called for, that they can hope to live in a world not incessantly dominated by fear of terror alerts... That is how he wins. But in the mean time, I have to confess that I find it insulting to think that smart people can continue to honestly claim that the Democratic nominee for President cannot even perceive the threat of the greatest single enemy facing the country in the midst of the most important campaign of his life. Maybe you can boil it back down to the Yakutsa advertisement's bullshit, and the unwillingness of people to look beyond slander and prejudice and soundbites. Still, I propose a slight riff on that now-ancient Dean poster: "Vote Accountability, not Fear". It is the old Saletan argument, and the prime reason I still think Kerry will pull this out of the fire… I look forward to your reports from the frontlines. Any doubt that the focus of our lives will not continue to be elections and policy implementation? I think we can safely note in the biographies that it truly started this cycle.

A Leap of Faith

Apologies for the random musings of the past evenings, intersperced as they were with some Johnny Cash tunes from the Man Comes Around. I will leave them up for their incoherence. As I attempted to say before, I do appreciate what I might call your "Andrew Sullivan" perspective - the non-partisan, blunt Conservative viewpoint. I do love argument in political debate above all, especially when it is stripped of the hackery that Stewart mocked Carlson and Begala for, focused as it must be on ideas and effectiveness. I do drift toward the left, but quite like writers like George Will and Andrew Coyne as opposed to Mark Steyn or Robert Novak. The difference, though perhaps hard to isolate, is in the tone. They tell me things I do not know without overt condescention, and so provide a basis for developing and refining political beliefs of my own. Contrast them with demagogues on the right (or oft-criticisms of what you might call the "vitriolic" left in equal measure). As we move toward actually working on governance as a living/life career, let us keep such pragmatism and willingness to listen as paramount. Let such a philosophy keep Ahab on his even keel as well. That said, I have waited patiently for the New York Times endorsement of Kerry for President, not because of the impact of such an obvious annoucement, but for the cogency of their argument. Surprisingly, it has been printed early. I am sure you will come across it Cooper, but here is the hyperlink in any case. A few brilliant quotes. For my money, I offer these examples:

"There is no denying that this race is mainly about Mr. Bush's disastrous tenure... Like the tax cuts, Mr. Bush's obsession with Saddam Hussein seemed closer to zealotry than mere policy... The international outrage over the American invasion is now joined by a sense of disdain for the incompetence of the effort... The Bush White House has always given us the worst aspects of the American right without any of the advantages... Time and again, history invited George W. Bush to play a heroic role, and time and again he chose the wrong course."

And could either of us, from opposite sides of the spectrum, say it better than this conclusion?

"Voting for president is a leap of faith. A candidate can explain his positions in minute detail and wind up governing with a hostile Congress that refuses to let him deliver. A disaster can upend the best-laid plans. All citizens can do is mix guesswork and hope, examining what the candidates have done in the past, their apparent priorities and their general character. It's on those three grounds that we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president."

I thought Lincoln was good...

God I love Jon Stewart. Listen to this guy... To Crossfire: "Stop hurting America." No, that would be great, I would love to see a debate show... No, nononono.... this is theatre. It's obvious. And you wear a bowtie. But the thing is... you're doing theatre... but... You are doing theatre, when you should be doing debate, and it kills me. what you do is not honest, what you do is partisan hackery.... "The show that leads into me is puppets making prank phone calls - what is wrong with you?" I have wanted to say this to Crossfire for about a year and a half. This is the ultimate condemnation. Outstanding. Thank God. You have a responsibility to the public discourse... Wow... Gold.

Crunch Time for our man Kerry

....and the whirlwind is in the thorn-tree, says J. Cash. And I heard a voice in the midst of the 4 beasts and I looked and behold, a pale horse, and his name that set on him was death, and hell followed with him... I wish I had seen Stewart throttle Begala and Carlson on CNN for myself tonight. But if there is any doubt that he is not one of the great, insightful personalities of the 2004 election, kick me hard. I really want to address the "Sullivan-Cooper" analysis of this Presidency, but find myself unable to do so tonight, for the simple reason that - one, I completely agree with most of the criticism, and.. - two, your ideas have been sadly high-jacked by the exact partisanship that JS nails CNN for - and also "my fucking-stupid-get-up-tomorrow-at-8-matriculation-uniform-that-costs-50-ridiculous-pounds" shit is a hindrance. I am not so naive as to see your move away from Bush as a left-wing victory, my friend. Know that. And in many ways, the election has been a coming of principles for me as well. I am quite quite knowledgeable about the record of our man Dean, by the way, and there are songs like "Desperado" that put your position in stark terms that I absolutely agree with... I did meet the Doctor, twice, after all. And do still think that if he was ready to be President, he would have made a formidable candidate that we could have both worked for in Ohio much more solidly than the Senator. But it is key that as terrible as Kerry is, he holds up well under pressure at the end. The desperation about the Mary Cheney shit is proof enough. Who the hell is this idiot Hugh Hewitt, by the way? sail on silver girl, sail on by.... you better let somebody love you... before it's too late... see you in Reno, me boy. I have much to say about the coming to terms of non-Bush republicans, it has been an election campaign that has thrown me for a loop as well buddy, no doubt. And when Kos talks passionately about Salazar and Carson and Knowles, don't think I am not as sold as any despite the conservative nature of their politics! And I do realize your agony, in many senses, more than the partisan blogs would be ready to admit. It is that much more difficult for me to be in England and not Ohio, in the sense that this damn election is so fundamentally about issues that are about TRUTH v. IDIOCY and HOPE v. FEAR - I really don't know what to say anymore sometimes. If Rove can parlay this Mary Chaney shit into a victory, well let's throw Republican bullshit out the window, I say. They are making a mockery of us, and it is about time that we make a strong stand against it. I will be watching Reno closely for the next fortnight. Let them know, my friend.... a Kerry victory on 11/02, and then a total re-evaluation. I have to pre-graduate in 3 hours with a six pound white bow tie. But as I say, who cares? the world waits for November. Don't lose too much in Poker until we know the damn end result. And of course, when Kerry is the man, we will both have our positions against him! Who will we work for in NH - I can see you with Rudy, perhaps my opposition candidate is as yet more discrete. Safe drive. We will speak again soon.

Gone "left"?

I just want to make it clear that switching sides from Bush to Kerry is not an easy decision, and is the culmination of nearly four years of agonizing thought and, often, cognitive dissonance. All the while I feel like I've stayed the same, even since 9/11, while the world has gone mad around me. And at times like this, it's nice to know that there are others just like me. Once again, nobody says it better than Andrew Sullivan.

Lots of you have written to say I've gone "left." If being left means balancing the budget, winning a well-planned war in Iraq, fighting Islamo-fascism, cutting spending, reforming entitlements, keeping taxes low, defending states' rights, defending the drug companies, increasing military strength and bringing marriage into the gay community, then I guess I'm a lefty. On the Cheney thing, as on all these issues, my position is the same now as it was four years ago.

Big Sam Wang

I've been reading a lot on stats lately, particularly as they apply to the presidential race. No surprise that the race is close on all fronts, including EVs, or that the keys are Florida and Ohio. Princeton prof Sam Wang is one of the guys I read (we'll have to put some favorite links on this blog or something). He confirms that Ohio is the absolute key to this election, as evidenced by one probability calculation:

Ohio is critical for victory - but slightly more critical for Bush. This principle can be expressed quantitatively (thanks to Paul Y. at Goldman Sachs for asking this one). Given today's numbers, assuming a Kerry win in Ohio, the probability that Kerry wins the general election is 89% (8:1 odds). Conversely, if Bush wins Ohio, his win probability for the general election is 83% (5:1 odds). The exceptional outcomes are caused by all the alternate scenarios that Electoral College junkies like to speculate about.

Wang is making me feel good about Nevada (and I'll be driving through Ohio and Iowa on my travels too):

Hitting the streets: How much do you affect the election by going somewhere to get out the vote? The way to do this calculation is to see how much the Electoral College win probability is changed by incrementing a state's margin by some fraction F, where F is inversely proportional to the state's voting population. This is because as an individual, you can only get out a finite number of votes.

Today, the best states to go to, in descending order, are: Iowa, Ohio, Nevada, and Florida. Things change a little bit if the margin is different from the estimate (for instance towards Kerry because of the incumbent rule as originated by Guy Molyneux and reviewed by the Mystery Pollster and Mark Shields), but the top four states always include Ohio and Nevada. Why Nevada? Nevada is a near-tossup and has a disproportionately high share of electoral votes.

Mock debate

Hilarious take on the debate here. (By a guy who, I believe, was Shane Smyth's roommate at Princeton. Total coincidence.) The off-colour money quote:

SCHIEFFER: People in the National Guard have been complaining about a backdoor draft. What's your reaction to that?

BUSH: I told you. I'm not for gay marriage.

Why O'Reilly Should Like Kerry

As I prepare to make the cross-continental trip to Reno, I'm trying to remember how I got here. Not here geographically; here politically. I've been on a journey that has taken me from support of George W. Bush's election in 2000, to amazement and wonderment at Bush's ability to make good on campaign promises to unite a divided Congress (hello, Ted Kennedy) while fulfilling major campaign promises like tax cuts, and his Churchillian (yes, Churchillian) reaction immediately after September 11. The successful invasion from Afghanistan was the high point in this administration, and would be the high point in most presidencies. But from there, it was all downhill, both for Bush and my estimation of him. Spending money like a drunken sailor. Total lack of accountability within the administration, with the excuse the lame and nebulous "loyalty" to protect the likes of Tenet after September 11, who presided over the two worst intelligence failures in American (world?) history -- 9/11 and, long after he should have been fired, the "slam dunk" WMDs. The outright denial of facts that are plain as day to any observer. As I posted previously, the statements that drove me over the edge -- and I suspect will be the keys to the election -- were Bush's failure when asked in the second debate to name a single mistake he has made, and in the third his outrage at the "exaggeration" that he ever claimed he wasn't concerned with finding bin Laden. Then the denial of civil liberties to American citizens, the suspension of habeas corpus under the guise of presidential privilege. Add to this the greatest curbing of media access of any White House since Nixon (and perhaps moreso), and the emblematically shameless prosecution of Judy Miller for a story she didn't even write about a scandalous "outing" of a CIA operative by the White House for political purposes... "Liberal" is a dirty word in American politics, like it or not. And I would classify myself as a moderate conservative, or as MacDuff might say, a Rockefeller Republican. But Bush's policies, for the reasons outlined above -- lack of accountability, fiscal irresponsibility, denial of individual rights, big, bloated, Big Brotherish government -- are a betrayal of the conservative vision, and are nearly diametrically opposed to the policies he espoused when running in 2000. His pursuit of a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage was a device intended to pander to the Christian right -- it could be nothing else -- and represents a terrifying denial of human rights on a national level for token political purposes (again, diametrically opposed to Bush 2K who insisted that the states should manage their own business, not the beltway). I'm no peacenik, far from it. I supported the use of military force in Iraq, and I thought going through and eventually around the UN was defensible, even as a defence of the legitimacy of the weak-willed UN itself. Hindsight is, indeed, 20/20. I believe in Bush's vision overall -- having lived in Saudi Arabia, the lion's den, I understand that Iraq had a chance to be a game-changer. The regimes of the Middle East are almost comically corrupt, and unless something happened to break that cycle, the region would be producing suicide bombers for years to come. But Kerry has made the case persuasively that the proverbial eye has been taken off the ball (as he constantly reminds us), and common sense tells us that too many errors have been made in the prosecution of the war in Iraq and the subsequent peace. All this to the point where things may be worse now than they were before. I'm not sure whether Kerry would have had the courage to try such a game-changer, but I'm tempted to believe that if he did, he would have done so in a more competent matter. At any rate, a change of the guard will be a good thing at this point; as lame as Kerry's calls for "new alliances" are, they at least reflect the fact that the present administration's credibility could not be any lower, either at home or abroad. I also will not get into the way in which 9/11 changed everything -- it did, but the reaction has turned out to be the wrong one. (I couldn't say it any better than Tom Friedman, with whom I share many opinions on Iraq and the Middle East.) Robert A. George in The New Republic makes the conservative's case against Bush as well as anyone -- and there have been many disenchanted conservatives emerging in the recent past. George, and Andrew Sullivan, and I, and others, are on the same page, I think:

No, a Kerry administration would not be any conservative's ideal. But, on limited government, a Democratic president would, arguably, force a Republican Congress to act like a Republican Congress. The last such combination produced some form of fiscal sanity. And, when it comes to accountability, one could hardly do worse. Of course, a conservative can still cast a libertarian vote on principle.

As I've said of Sullivan's prose, I myself could have written those words. Many true conservatives are leaving Bush, and for exactly those reasons. But voting Libertarian this cycle is ridiculous, for obvious reasons. I have come to believe, sincerely, that the best case scenario in this cycle is a Democratic president with a Republican congress. On the balance, and rhetoric aside, it is difficult to tell who the conservative candidate is in this race. All cards on the table: I liked Howard Dean, because he represented not only a particular unequivocal stand on the war in Iraq (though I disagreed with his conclusions, I respected the sincerity), his record reflected conservative values even more than Bush's White House. I'm happy to get into that if you want, but let's leave it at fiscal responsibility, tax relief for the middle class and gun rights, to name a few. In 2004, Kerry espouses the closest thing to a true conservative candidate there is (aside from the libertarian). Can you IMAGINE saying that five years ago? I don't love Kerry, to be sure, but he is the alternative in a time of moral crisis -- and if you've read your Dante, you know for whom the darkest places in hell are reserved. I've never "hated" George Bush on a personal level the way some people have. I can't read the comments on Daily Kos because they're so ridiculously vitriolic, and sometimes hateful. I certainly don't think he's stupid. He's probably a great family man, he obviously has a strength of personal conviction that I and many others admire, and his common touch and obvious political strengths will make him a figure studied in poli sci textbooks for years to come. But I do politely and firmly disagree with him on far too many things to support him. And the debates have pushed me beyond the disagreement to the notion that the best possible outcome in November is the election of John Kerry. It's taken me a long time to come to that conclusion. But I've given Bush the chance, and he has failed time and time again. So why the title to this post? Because, to answer MacDuff's question, Kerry should visit the O'Reilly Factor and make the case that he is the candidate for conservatives. He risks losing nobody from his base, since they know what his policies are anyway and seem to be fine with them, to the tune of 47 percent of the electorate. To have the courage to show up on O'Reilly would be a start, but by outlining the points that I and others have made -- the conservative's case against Bush -- he might just sway a few tenths of a percent his way. It is the only way to reach out to a large number of voters who might otherwise have not considered him, and having gone toe-to-toe with the previously-undefeated-in-debates Bush (boy, does that seem like a long time ago), he can more than handle O'Reilly. And even in the worst-case scenario, and it's a disaster, and O'Reilly refuses to bend, who does he lose? Voters who aren't voting for him anyway? This is a no-brainer to me. Go on The Factor, Senator Kerry. Real conservatives have nothing to lose but their party-line shackles.

Finding my inner Jack Kerouac

Just got back. My conclusion: Kerry won, at least enough to carry the momentum all the way to the finish line. I can't say that Kerry thrills me terribly, but after watching him pull off the trifecta against an inconsistent and ineffective president, my mind is made up. The devastating moment was Bush's blatant denial that he had ever expressed a lack of concern about finding Osama. We'll be seeing that on TV for weeks. And I'll be replaying it in my head all the way to Reno, where I will help John Kerry become the next President of the United States of America. More in the a.m.

And Mr. Frum...

I don't know what to say to this guy... really. Let me prelude with his reaction to the Edwards-Cheney debate as follows:

With his repeated and worshipful descriptions of John Kerry--not to mention Edwards's moist good looks--you have to say that he would fill the role of First Lady much better than Teresa Heinz is likely to do. It would all have been very impressive--if Cheney's scalpel had not so swiftly and mercilessly sliced Edwards's living liver out of his body, impaled it quivering on a stick, and paraded it before Edwards' soulful eyes before the poor man expire

Who could possibly have watched that and agreed, yet he is paid for this analysis? Good on 'em, I suppose. So I waited with baited enthusiasm for his call of a Bush victory in round III. Not to be disappointed, he comes up with this:

Kerry made the gaffe of a lifetime in his answer to Bob Schieffer’s last question. “Well I guess all three of us are lucky men who married up.” The second those words passed his lips, his face flushed and his face twisted into a self-horrified grimace.

You really have to be an idiot to think this, I believe. You cannot complain that Kerry has no sense of humour and then claim his "gaffe of a lifetime" was committed in deftly handling a question of such explosiveness so well - in an area where Bush holds such an obvious advantage it is shocking that it was even asked. I laugh that he had to wait until the last possible question to come up with such a "gaffe of a lifetime". Honestly, I do not know if these are overt attempts to suade or reassure himself and others on the Bush position, or merely a reflection of his head up Bush's ass. I will say that it is for the sake of guys like this, and Steyn, that I do want to see el Presidente get shelled at all costs. So shocking on most counts, their sheer gall. I find myself as partisan as many, yet even with multiple beer in me, I am not so naive to say such ridiculous things. We march on.

Kate O

From the National Review's Corner: IS IT JUST ME? [Kate O'Beirne] Tonight John Kerry strikes me as a most unattractive man. Do you suppose Americans will figure they don't feel like looking at him for the next four years? answer: no. hopefully they care more about policy. the insta-reaction is predictable, both sides predicting victory. surely Kerry spoke more closely to the independents though (?) question: Cooper - did you see what you needed to hit ohio? or vegas (baby)! Kossacks should be pleased, as it now turns to the ground game. You should let me know what your political judgment is on the Kerry appearance on the O'Reilly Factor though, even if his shower fantasies may serve to tar his reputation. Look forward to the opinion from TO. But if you doubt the importance of ridding the world of Bush after tonight - I would be shocked. And take that as a pledge from someone that will join you in NH in 2008 for the Kennedy-esq opposition to the Kerry presidency, eh?

Random Chronological Thoughts....

OK - here we go... start at the bottom for the beginning. NOTE - time will be stated locally (ie. 9PM EST = 2AM here) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3:30 AM - Is it just me, or did Bush get the last word in every one of the three debates? And solid statements by both men. Off to grab another Stella from my room, and read the North American reactions. But at the moment, I have to see this as a brilliant, confident Kerry performance. Difficult to imagine how he could do more under the circumstances. And so I go back to the post I made after debate #1 - this is the reason that Kerry was judged the most "electable" - showing the gravitas that no other candidate could have shown, the presence and strength no other candidate had at their back. And hilariously, it surprises the Bush camp. Perhaps (if you leave out Big Mac Clinton, of course) only Kerry is capable of skewering Bush as well as he did in these 90 minute segments. Honestly, us skeptics of his candidacy from as far back as November 2002 - went to the Purple Turtle last night for good luck - have to be pleased with these performances. Anxious to hear other opinions, but I do come away happy. 3:25 AM - "We all married up. Maybe me more than you both. But I can take it." - There is a Kerry humour moment that is absolutely appropriate. And an answer that diffuses the Theresa issue as well as any... 3:22 AM - "a lot more loving of our neighbour in this country to do". I judge these debates mostly on Kerry's responses, since I admit no ability to see what people see in Bush II. But I have to think that to this point, Kerry is proving why Democrats decided back in January that Kerry was "electable" - he holds up under this scrutiny at the end. It is why I think he could handle O'Reilly. Just imagine Bush on the Daily Show. I don't think Jon Stewart would be able to handle it... 3:16 AM - "better when they can bid on contracts", says Bush - uh, Halliburton. (though I agree that it is best if Kerry strays away from this.) 3:14 AM - Affirmative action - another Dean question - "mend it, don't end it", Clinton raised again and the NAACP, etc... is this not brilliant? 3:10 AM - ... to his worst point - Democrats have called for the ban on assault weapons? I really like Kerry's response, but would have loved if he had asked which Democrat supports AK-47s. Are there Democrats out there that support this? I would have taken it out to the country to fight, like Bill Clinton! Again, lovely. 3:09 AM - Bush goes to the "comprehensive test" - Kerry suggests a "truth" standard. Interesting. Bush talks about his Father's war in his most effective point thus far. 3:06 AM - "You be the judge." Boom. The % rebuttal was epic, in my thoughts. Bush is being shown out of his league. Again, I am measuring the debate primarily on the ability of Kerry to put Bush on the spot - I confess that I cannot at all judge the effectiveness of President Bush since every response incites anger within me. 3:02 AM - "I will appoint judges that interpret the constitution." THAT IS YOUR ANSWER? Who would appoint a judge that doesn't interpret the constitution? I love Kerry and his willingness to engage the President over and over. That is the key. Is it just me, or is he really shining here? 2:58 AM - "tired of politicians who talk about family values and don't value families." Great line. 2:56 AM - "I will." Kerry is coming across strong, confident, and the debater that we imagined. I do not know if Bush's thoughts on this "outrageous claim" will hit home... wow, Bob Schaffer gave Kerry a huge opportunity here!! Maybe even unfair. And yet here comes a softball on minimum wage. The media bias issue will be focused here. 2:52 AM - 6 Republicans, 5 Democrats, wars, recessions... great work Kerry ... now Bush is trying to say that middle and lower class Americans got the most benefit of his tax cut. It is a dicey proposition here, but Kerry is making his points. And Bush is talking about "fiscal sanity" - you have to be kidding me - is that remotely convincing to you as a Rockefeller Repub, Coop? 2:46 AM - "you just heard the President say..." that is the strategy I hoped Kerry would adopt, and he is rocking it so far. Lovely lovely. Where is Gore's "lockbox" now? 2:44 AM - Bush's healthcare: "the envy of the world" - remember Dean had the great line about every civilized industrialized nation in the world having everyone covered except the U.S. Which country would find the U.S.'s system, with how many million not even covered, better than their own? Not Canada, Sweden, Britain, and on and on.... 2:39 AM - "the President is wrong." - excellent. I think that was nicely done in defending the record. And now a question about Kerry's Healthcare plan. Will he address the Bush ad that has slandered it directly? .... maybe not, but the directness of the idea of CHOICE is perfect, totally undercutting the anticipated Bush response. Now all the President is the cost and size. And here he goes with a weird opening... 2:36 AM - "I sure hope it is not the administration" responsible for the rise in health care costs. Are you kidding me? Yeah, go blame the law suits. This is really pathetic. Bush looks good, but listen to him! 2:32 AM - Kerry quotes the bible beautifully - he is fucking on his game. and Bush responds with his lame "culture of life" - do people see this as weak? "out of the mainstream" seems to be the attack line... this is the Bush strategy, and it is beginning to become all-too clear why it is difficult to run for President as a Senator. But I think Kerry is rebutting him well. 2:31 AM - Dick Cheney's daughter - a nice move into the actual question. Respect is key. What will Sullivan say to this question? The discrimination tack is the right way to tackle this... and states rights. Survival for Kerry on a tough one. 2:28 AM - The far left bank of American politics. An interesting rhetorical turn, but is Kerry's command of all these issues successful in putting this line of criticism down? Bush cannot try and peg Kerry on his "liberal" record in the face of his sheer idiocy - proven. 2:25 AM - "it is your money" - I hate that line. 2:23 AM - American workers subsidizing the outsourcing of jobs - I love Kerry is attacking Bush on specific issues that I doubt he will be able to address directly. It is the challenge to the President - can he rise to it? "whew" he says. Is that the second time in his life he has used the word "litany"? 2:20 AM - Tony Soprano on law and order! Boom! 2:18 AM - exporting jobs = problem in education, says Bush. Will that play to Ohio? He certainly isn't talking about the guy who is unemployed... lovely work by Kerry here to identify this... 2:17 AM - great answer by Kerry - 1st President in 100 years not to veto a budget bill. "Pay go" - can thinking people PLEASE note how Bush has just tried to duck his record by just blaming a "colleague of Senator Kennedy" - pathetic. 2:15 AM - "pay as you go" - "the only President" - is Kerry getting off track... maybe not, because he is back now to getting back to focusing on HOW TO PAY FOR IT. Is it convincing? 2:12 AM - though I should say Bush looks spirited and engaged - " a plan is not a litany of complaints" - and then bait and switch... here is some preparation, and now a GREAT rebuttal by Kerry, I think, with the focus back on prescription drugs. 2:09 AM - Bush can't remember his previous statements about bin Laden, we are subject to way too many repetitions by both candidates of their past talking points on the opening questoin... now Bush is talking about not taking flu shots himself and is blaming lawyers. Where is the ability to address a question? 2:02 AM - Here we go... the audience has agreed to be silent... two red ties... let's get it on. 1.49 AM - The Onion headline moments before the last debate: "Cheney vows to attack U.S. if Kerry is elected." Must I say it again, genius. 1.28 AM - settling in with some Cake and Johnny Cash and Stella Artois. As a point of interest, one of the Irish players in the world cup qualifier tonight against the Faroe Islands was wearing his "livestrong" bracelet. An omen of good luck. More after the opening statements.

An hour to go...

well - upon your return, hopefully you will be able to see my point-by-point analysis above. And since neither you nor KF nor anyone else will be reading this tonight, I will post 'er all in one big wallop as I drink a few Stella in the computer room of 87 Banbury Road. I agree with you on what Kerry needs to do, of course, and do hope it sends you South soon enough. Either Ohio or Nevada would be excellent. I can feel a Kerry surge. Let's hope it happens tonight, in Cheney's words, "bigtime".

Off...

No live blogging for me -- I'll be watching the debates downtown with the Young Democrats at U of T. If Kerry's performance is stirring enough, I'll be heading to a swing state this weekend. In brief, I'm looking for a good reply on taxes and a good attack on fiscal irresponsibility and the inability to admit mistakes. The environment is not one of my priorities. Neither do I care much for the rhetoric of class warfare, which makes me cringe everytime the KE ticket invokes it. (That includes the word "Halliburton".) The question is: how will Bush look behind the podium tonight?

Snow job

Well, here's the first talking point in the debate, from which all else stems: Bush Treasury Secretary John Snow's unfortunate comments about the economy:

Claims like the one that Bush will be the first president to end a term with fewer jobs than when he started are nothing more than "myths," Snow claimed. Another particularly nasty myth, he said, is the idea that the Bush administration "squandered" a $5.4 trillion budget surplus. The truth is, it never existed, Snow said. That number was only a projection that quickly dried up after the economy absorbed a series of "body blows" that included the stock market meltdown of the late 1990s, a recession, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and corporate scandals like the Enron failure. "That's what happened to the so-called surplus, it was a mirage," Snow said. "It never existed."

To be fair, Snow is technically right on both counts. Bush is not the first president to end his term with fewer jobs: Hoover was. And the surplus was not technically real, but projected. The problem is that while technically true, they are misleading statements bordering on falsehoods. Not only are they misleading, they make it appear as though the administration is completely out of touch. And Bush is having a tough enough time regaining credibility without his own Treasury Secretary saying these sorts of things. Bush's defense of his economic record -- that he inherited the problems and his policies have saved things from getting worse -- is credible, if weak. But sweeping the problems under the carpet by ignoring the facts is a losing strategy. How much luckier can Seabisc...I mean, Kerry, get? This statement emerging on the day of the debate? This is a gift.

Me Likey

Nice rhetorical strategy, suggested by the excellent &c. at TNR (AKA Noam Scheiber):

During the last few weeks of the campaign, probably the best way for Kerry to consolidate support among people who believe the country is headed in the wrong direction but aren't yet sold on him--a group polls have shown could be more than five percent of the electorate--is to start asking, rhetorically, how people will feel if they wake up on November 3 and hear that Bush has been elected to another four years in office. Clinton used this tack toward the end of his 1992 campaign to underscore his "change versus more of the same" theme. (Clinton's exact words were, "Just imagine what you're going to feel like if you wake up on the morning of November 4 and the newspaper reads, 'Four more years.' Imagine what it would be like. ... [Then] think about what you'll feel like on November 4 if you have helped to create a new America, to bring back the American dream and bring the American people together.") It seemed to work pretty well back then. Given the intense opposition to George W. Bush, I suspect it's likely to work even better this time around.

Stuck in the arc

Sullivan focuses on one part of Larry Sabato's latest level-headed "Crystal Ball" analysis: that Bush's approval is too low for reelection, and that high turnout favours the Democrat. True enough. But equally pertinent is his analysis of why that approval rating is so low:

A small majority of voters appears to want to replace George Bush in the White House, judging him to be too conservative, too stubborn, and too eager to get the nation involved in dangerous foreign conflicts.

In other words, all of the things which Rove and company counted on to get the president re-elected: his conservative values, resoluteness and taking action in Iraq against the "terrorist threat" -- are exactly those things that are going to ensure he doesn't get reelected. This may be self-evident. But it also reveals a missed potential winning strategy for the president. I think he's shored up his base just fine. If he could have shown a bit of recognition of the faults of his own administration -- admitted in Debate #2 that mistakes have been made -- it would be worth at least a couple of points in the polls. As it stands, the final, winning narrative of this election is this: Bush is unable to see the problems, so he won't be able to deliver the solutions. Kerry and Edwards have been hammering on this theme, and Bush has not and cannot respond, probably because he and his aides believe that to do so would be to reveal weakness. That strategy is, and has been, idiocy, and it will be the reason Bush loses on Nov 2. Some evidence. I'll let the wire services do the talking:

One measure that has changed significantly is the question of which candidate is more honest and trustworthy. Before the debates, Bush won that test by 47 percent to 38 percent.

During the first two debates, though, Kerry hammered at Bush's honesty by linking his upbeat assessments to violence in Iraq or weaker-than-expected job creation. Repeatedly, Kerry not only complained about those issues, but also said that Bush was refusing to be honest with Americans about them.

After the two encounters, voters favored Kerry on the question of honesty 44 percent to 42 percent.

The Gallup poll also said that Bush's approval rating had dropped to 47 percent. Typically, incumbents who have been re-elected had approval numbers of at least 54 percent. The margin of error on the approval rating was plus or minus 3 percentage point.

Mark my words: political scientists and historians will see the turning point as Bush's inability to name any mistakes when asked directly to do so in the second debate. And to deny having made any mistakes does something unlikely -- it pulls back the curtain and makes Bush look like a typical politician, precisely the image he has sought to avoid. That is the narrative, or arc, or whatever you want to call it. And Bush seems unable, and possibly unwilling, to shake it -- all the way back to Crawford.

A Debate Prediction

One more debate - if you are around a computer, how about some live-blogging? Depending on where I end up at its beginning, I will see about it as well. Until then, a prediction: the true scoring of the final debate will really depend on how successfully Kerry rebuts three main Bush talking points. Roughly paraphrased: (1) On jobs: Two million new jobs in the last year and "turning the corner." (2) On healthcare: John Kerry's plan would be a bureaucratic nightmare of big government. (3) On taxes: John Kerry will raise your taxes. It should be so easy for the Kerry campaign to prepare, as this is all Bush has said and can really say based on his record. They have to be ready to respond in blunt language that no one will fail to understand. And Kerry must frame the upcoming 20 days in his closing. How about something like this:

"As you have heard tonight, the President is trying to hide from the terrible record he has built up over the last 4 years. Most people can see that on all major domestic issues, America is heading in the wrong direction. Simply put, we are worse off - the deficit keeps rising, hitting record levels that our children will have to pay back; people are losing healthcare coverage; more jobs have been lost on his watch than gained; and on and on. But Mr. Bush seems unwilling or unable to see this, to even recognize he may have made mistakes, to see the hardship born by the American people. And he wants to stay the course on policies that have been proven failures. I am an optimist, and I believe we can do better. The Republican campaign has tried to distort my past record and mislead you about my plan, but in the course of these debates you have seen something different. I hope you have seen in me a President that will fight for you, that will wake up everyday looking to protect you. I ask you to join with me in seeking to build a stronger American at home and one that is respected in the world again. Thank you, and God Bless."

An Ace in the Hole?

How great have Jon Stewart and the Daily Show been this cycle? I have had a blast watching the clips on comedycentral.com. Check out the "It's All Relative" video, with this hilarious take:

"...apparently there were no WMD in Iraq and their capabilities had been degraded and they pretty much stopped trying anything in '98. And both the President and VP have come out today in response to the findings [of the Duefel report] and said that they clearly justify the invasion of Iraq. So, ah, some people look at a glass and see it as half-full and other people look at a glass and say that it's a DRAGON."

But the real interesting issue stems from his interview with Bill O'Reilly (check that out as well if you haven't seen it yet), who hilariously claimed he is still an undecided voter. More significantly, he has made it clear he would love to have John Kerry on his show for an interview. Kerry has responded with tepid enthusiasm for the idea. So the question: Should he? I have never really seen the O'Reilly Factor, and certainly realize that Kerry would be taking a pretty big risk in agreeing to take on the FOX analyst in hostile territory. But imagine two weeks before the election, and Kerry is in search of that small bump that might help push him over the top. All Kerry really needs to do is reassure people as to his toughness, after all. So if our challenger finds himself seeking an opportunity to prove he has the "Right Stuff" in the late innings, why not take on O'Reilly in front of a massive audience? It would be the final, ultimate culmination of his effort to reach out to middle America. Take the man at his word that he is an undecided and play it as an attempt to convince him. While Bush is so busy speaking to crowds of people who sign "loyalty oaths", there is Kerry trying to win Bill O'Reilly's vote. If Bush cannot stand up to Americans who disagree with him, how can he stand up to Osama bin Laden? It would be a gamble, but one that I think could work spectacularly well. Play the Ace if you need it, John. Agree?

If you can slide it in there...

My call for the cheap shot of tonight's debate: "Under this administration, 3.8 million people have lost their health insurance. But astonishingly, we learned yesterday that under George Bush's watch, even Saddam Hussein is covered for a hernia operation. What more do you need to know about the president's priorities that millions of Americans have lost their health care and the former dictator of Iraq is still entitled to it?"

And Then There Were Eleven

Speaking of "putting your money where your mouth is" as a concrete demonstration of belief, there is perhaps no better indicator of the campaigns' strategies than where they are concentrating their advertising dollars. The terrific Wisconsin Advertising Project has just released ad numbers from September 24-October 7. They indicate that up until the second presidential debate, at least, eleven states are still on the table: WI, CO, NV, FL, OH, MI, WI, WV, PA, NM, MN. Here are the overall top ad markets: 1. Miami, FL 2. Albuquerque, NM 3. Reno, NV 4. Tampa, FL 5. Green Bay, WI 6. Cleveland, OH 7. Toledo, OH 8. Columbus, OH 9. Grand Rapids, MI 10. Harrisburg, PA (No surprises here. Reno!) Bush-Cheney ads: 1. Miami, FL 2. Albuquerque, NM 3. Reno, NV 4. Grand Rapids, MI 5. Madison, WI 6. Green Bay, WI 7. Harrisburg, PA 8. Cleveland, OH 9. La Crosse, WI 10. Las Vegas, NV (Bushies are nervous about Nevada and see cracks in Pennsylvania and Michigan.) Kerry-Edwards ads: 1. Miami, FL 2. Albuquerque, NM 3. Tampa, FL 4. Columbus, OH 5. Toledo, OH 6. Cleveland, OH 7. Green Bay, WI 8. Reno, NV 9. Orlando, FL 10. Dayton, OH (Ohio is the key.) The top 50 for each candidate, and overall, available in PDF here; summary in PDF here. Few surprises, really. The big prizes: Ohio, Florida, and Wisconsin, with a smattering of Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada. Maine is off the table for Bush (Bangor does check in at #48 on his list), as is Washington (not in the top 50). Kerry appears to abandon New Hampshire (Manchester makes #48, and Mass. appears nowhere) and long shots like Arkansas. Some observations. West Virginia is still in play, if barely: Kerry has Charleston, WV on his list (#12), though probably also because its market overlaps with Ohio. In the upcoming period, look for more advertising in volatile Colorado, which barely registers overall compared to the heavy hitters (Denver 21st overall), and watch trends in Michigan -- should be a lean-Kerry state, but both campaigns continue to pour the money in. And Reno looks like a hotbed of this election: #3 overall. To think, I could be part of the action by next week. Bottom line, if you're not in the top 11, you're basically being completely ignored. Source: NIELSEN MONITOR-PLUS AND THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN ADVERTISING PROJECT. Because they asked politely.

So play the spread

I saw the odds for myself, and it looks like an arbitrage opportunity to me. I agree, it's ridiculous. It doesn't take a Karl Rove to figure out that you could bet in the right proportions, on Kerry to win the election and Bush to win Ohio and Florida, to guarantee that you win money. I guess as more people make those bets the odds change. But if you could make all of them simultaneously somehow, you'd be sitting pretty. Or perhaps Sportsinteraction.com has caught wind of an October Surprise?

Bizarro Betting Options

Could someone explain sportsinteraction.com's betting options on the Presidential election?? These odds change all the time, so you may have to trust me that at 10PM EST on October 12th, 2004, their Specials offered the following contradictory positions: US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION George W. Bush = 1.57 John Kerry = 2.25 WHO WILL WIN THE KEY STATES: FLORIDA George W. Bush = 1.90 John Kerry = 1.80 WHO WILL WIN THE KEY STATES: OHIO George W. Bush = 2.10 John Kerry = 1.66 If Kerry is favoured to win both Ohio and Florida, how can Bush be favoured to win outright? Truly Bizarro, Jerry. But perhaps it is just another example of the utter strangeness of this damn election. See 'em tomorrow night.

KF Weighs In

Is Mickey Kaus reading Ahab's Dream? (Answer: No. But read on anyway.)

Should Kerry take a dive in Colorado? Ron Brownstein notes that as Kerry becomes competitive in the state, Colorado Democrats are tempted to vote against the state initiative that would award Kerry a proportional share of Colorado's nine electoral votes even if he loses. After all, why should Dems settle for a proportional share if they can win all nine? But that's a risky calculation: If the initiative passes and is upheld, Kerry would almost certainly get four of the nine electoral votes even if he loses the state. If the initiative fails--in part because Dems think Kerry might win--but then Kerry loses the state by a hair, he winds up with zero. It could theoretically be smarter for him to settle for a sure 4 --losing to Bush in the state but winning the initiative--than to go for all 9. ... Of course, Kerry would have to factor in uncertainty about whether the initiative will be upheld in court. The "sure 4" wouldn't be all that sure.

What Goes Around...

Colorado certainly has been a crazy state to watch this past year - given Kerry's surprising strength there. Clinton won it in 1992, but only due to Perot's help in splitting the Bush I votes. Carter even lost Colorado on the road to victory in 1976, and Clinton lost the state to Dole in his re-election bid in 1996 as well. So it is unsurprising, especially given Florida, that Democratic legislators are mobilizing to pass the initiative. For thorough coverage check out the Center for Education in Law and Democracy's compilation of information and articles. I do not have enough background in American constitutional law to offer especially shrewd analysis. This certainly helps hint at the difficulties involved in truly reforming the Electoral College system, though. Let me go on the record now and say that whatever the outcome of the amendment, I favour applying the status quo to the results in 2004, and would vote against it if I had the option. I think the two legal challenges to its retroactive imposition would make reducing the winner's tally from 9 to 5 especially difficult to swallow, regardless whether they go to Bush or Kerry. I also think that in the absence of reform from other states, this truly would make Colorado irrelevant in future elections. While a legitimate case can be made for the Maine and Nebraska models that focus on awarding EVs for winning congressional districts, splitting them according to state-wide popular vote strikes me as lunacy. Really, who will ever come to Colorado to campaign for 1 electoral vote? I do sincerely hope that the passage of this amendment coupled with a close Electoral College loss do not end up serving as Kerry's Gore-like consolation prize, so Democrats go around claiming fruitlessly that they "won" this election as well. Again, if he can't beat Bush on the merits... (NOTE this is my intellectual position, of course. If it ever did come to this, I reserve the right to root for any outcome post-Nov 2nd that kicks Bush out of the White House.) The Kerry scenario you describe certainly is the more interesting - and potentially more catastrophic for the U.S., yet I still imagine that the status quo would prevail. Oh, the hypocrisy on both sides would be truly galling, though, and it is fortunate for Kerry that so far he does not seem to have any connection whatsoever with the initiative. Perhaps I have too much faith in the Conservatives on the SCC, but I think the fact that Democrats rallied behind the President after the decision last time around would help. Popular opinion would be horribly divided, but I think it would lean toward Kerry and a victory based on the rules in place at the time of the vote. Bush cannot be expected to coast into office on the coat-tails of the Supremes AGAIN, on reasoning that contrasts the majority's decision in Gore v. Bush, could he? It might stand as the ultimate vindication of the old maxim: "What goes around comes around". Let's just hope it doesn't come to this. I still think that the Dieboldt machines and the controversies that Krugman and Herbert have been reporting out of Florida could be the true election/constitutional time bombs. Makes it less easy to laugh at the "free and fair" elections in Afghanistan where the voting boxes look like they were bought at the dollarstore, they are being carried across country by donkey, and people voted multiple times simply by washing their hands...

Amendment 36

Since you've raised an economics question, I thought it only fair to raise a legal one. One of the most fascinating, and potentially decisive, political contests going on right now is not between Bush and Kerry, Coors and Salazar, or even two human candidates. It is over Colorado's Amendment 36, the "Make Every Vote Count" initiative. If it passes on November 2, the state will in theory allocate its nine electoral votes on the basis of proportional voting, retroactive to the 2004 election. In 2000, instead of Bush taking all the state's electoral votes, Gore would have siphoned off a few, instantly putting him in the White House. This year, it could have a similar effect, if ratified by the voters and allowed by the courts. As for the first of these factors, the voters are split on the amendment. A TV poll in Colorado on October 8 has 45% in favour of the amendment, 44% against and 12% undecided (MOE 4.5%). Obviously, could go either way. If the election is close this year, and the White House hangs in the balance of the 6-8 electoral vote swing inherent in the passing of Amendment 36, it could be a courtroom drama to rival Florida 2K. There's a great article in the Denver Post on the possible ramifications of passing the amendment. It's worth a read, as it summarizes the legal arguments pretty well. Here are the money quotes:

Amendment 36 is open to challenge on two major legal issues: whether a ballot initiative can change the election law, and whether it can be applied retroactively.

Article II of the Constitution gives states the power of selecting presidential electors in "such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct. As in Bush vs. Gore, the issue at hand is whether to apply the word "Legislature" broadly or narrowly...

John Fortier, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and expert on the Electoral College, thinks retroactivity is a crucial issue. "Are not voters entitled to know what the electoral system is before they cast their votes?" asks Fortier. "Voting for an initiative to change the voting system at the same time as votes are being cast for president arguably violates the due-process clause of the Constitution." Even if a due-process argument does not ultimately prevail, says Fortier, opponents of Amendment 36 could nevertheless use it, and other legal challenges, to tie things up in court and delay the allocation of Colorado's electoral votes past the federally mandated deadlines.

The article also predicts that given the legal precedent of the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, if a Bush v. Kerry case gets to the US Supreme Court, it will likely decide in favour of Bush. Colorado typically votes Republican, and as you might imagine, it is the Republicans who are more anxious to defeat the amendment. But this year, a close race between Kerry and Bush in the statewide polls open another tantalizing possibility: what if Kerry wins the state AND the amendment passes?

What do IEM prices tell us?

The Keynes analogy is the correct one. Participants on the Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM) essentially are predicting the behaviour of others (the beauty contest), based on proxy information. The question you seem to be raising is, what information are they using? And I would add another question: what does the market price actually tell us? So, for the first question. I think we can both assume that the market players are using sources of information that we would expect: poll numbers of all kinds (tracking likely, registered, right/wrong track, approval) and subjective analysis, like observing debate performances. The so-called 'students' of elections would be expected to consider historical trends in presidential races as well. Such sources include Yale prof Ray Fair's economic model (which shows Bush dominating in November) and data on historical swing voter movements. I tried to do some statistical analysis of what you identify as a 'lag' factor between IEM prices and released polls, but since I couldn't find enough poll data from before October 1, I couldn't do anything meaningful. At first glance, the numbers seem to bear out the claim that market players are being reactive to the polls rather than proactive, but to resolve that, we have to demonstrate a correlation between the lagged market price and polling data. As for the second question, it's not entirely clear what the market prices actually mean. There's a paper (on PDF) by Northwestern's Charles Manski on this very subject. It's pretty, well, economics-y, but I'll draw out the main question Manski seeks to answer, and briefly describe his conclusion. He writes:

What is the logical basis for interpreting the price of an all-or-nothing futures contract as a market probability that the event will occur? Researchers engaged in empirical study of prediction markets have been uncomfortably vague. Forsythe et al. (1992) and Berg, Nelson, and Rietz (2003) refer to Hayek (1945), who argued broadly that market prices aggregate information. Leigh, Wolfers, and Zitzewitz (2003) write (p. 2): “Markets aggregate opinions and, by requiring a trader to ‘put your money where your mouth is,’ theylessen the cheap-talk problem and create incentives for individuals to reveal their true beliefs.” These and other recent papers on prediction markets provide no formal analysis showing how such markets aggregate information or opinions.

In other words, the reason the IEM seem so seductive as a predictor is because they tell us that people are willing to put they money where their mouths are, and that as a result their opinions have some greater validity. But the price on the market is not a straight-up consensus that either candidate has a certain probability of gaining a majority in the popular vote (ie, if Bush is selling at .70, 70 percent). It is, Manski argues, just an average of market beliefs weighed by the amount of money each trader is prepared to bet. In other words, there might be only one guy who thinks the right/wrong track is the most important predictor of the eventual popular vote winner, and he bets heavily on that outcome. This does not mean that most people believe that Bush, say, will win. Unlike an efficient market, there is no consensus about what should make up the price of the contract: some people use different kinds of information (compare this to, say, the stock market, where market prices are determined by some pretty commonly available information, such as corporate earnings, etc). This conclusion seems to make sense, and gets at your point about the beauty contest -- everybody uses different methods of predicting who other people will vote for. In the IEM case, though, the price does not necessarily reflect the beliefs of all market players. I don't think there is any systematic way of determining the volumes bought and sold by individual traders, so we'll just leave it at that. Also, MacDuff, consider that even 'students' of past elections have no idea how this one will end up. We may believe that without winning Ohio, Bush cannot win the electoral college vote, because it has never been done before -- but there are several scenarios in which it can happen. Likewise, we may say that the Ray Fair model has never before failed in picking the president, but this year, it looks like he may be wrong if current opinion poll trends hold. The truth is, this is a highly unusual presidential election cycle, for reasons that are obvious -- tax cuts during a time of war, the spectre of an invisible terrorist enemy, job losses not seen since the Depression, and other boons and anxieties. I can't predict with any certainty which side will win, and anybody who says they can -- whether their money is riding on it or not -- cannot be any more certain. There is another thing to consider: what the IEM actually trades are contracts that either candidate will win the popular vote. In other words, the candidate could win the popular vote and yet lose the election. I tentatively predicted last April that Bush would win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote. At this point, I'd have to crunch the numbers to see if that's even possible, let alone likely. But it would be an interesting, and somewhat ironic, conclusion to the race.

Wither the Beauty Contest Analysts?

Keynes on Market Speculation:

"Professional investment may be likened to those newspaper competitions in which the competitors have to pick out the six prettiest faces from a hundred photographs, the prize being awarded to the competitor whose choice most nearly corresponds to the average preferences of the competitors as a whole; so that each competitor has to pick, not the faces which he himself finds the prettiest, but those which he thinks likeliest to catch the fancy of the other competitors, all of whom are looking at the problem from the same point of view." "It is not a case of choosing those which, to the best of one's judgment, are really the prettiest, nor even those which average opinion genuinely thinks the prettiest. We have reached the third degree when we devote our intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be. And there are some, I believe, who practise the fourth, fifth and higher degrees." -Keynes, John Maynard. "The general theory of employment, interest and money." London : Macmillan, St. Martin's Press, 1936. page 156.

As the polls narrow, it is comforting for Kerry supporters to see a tightening of the spread of the Iowa Presidential Market as well - further evidence that the senator from Massachusetts is closing fast. But the predictive power of the market system has been trumpeted by many as superior to traditional opinion polls. Certainly the following is not an original take, but I have yet to see it elsewhere in direct reference to this cycle, so let me recycle old man Keynes' point. If you look closely at the Iowa Market curve, it actually shows a LAG behind the movement of the race, instead of what Keynes would anticipate for a sophisticated market. A smart investor would of course predict bumps post-Conventions, for example, or (less obviously) a Kerry rally after debate #1 and adjust expectations accordingly. Instead, we have a predictable curve that is even inflated beyond the point of reasonableness. True students of past races would have been able to short-sell these patsies for a laugh. The telling aspect is that this particular market has behaved in a terribly reactive fashion, reflecting the polls rather than helping to offer insight. Maybe the volatile nature of this Presidential election is responsible, but to date this experiment has failed to inspire me with any confidence that it offers anything more than Zogby's "creative" tracking polls. On these numbers I think Bush is too high - and will fall some after debate three. You are the economist - what do you think? Should we just attribute this as a failure of the investors to engage in the 3rd and 4th level analysis that the beauty pageant requires?

The Comeback Narrative

...it grows as quickly as the "Bush is strong" meme is fading. How ironic that the very idea of a late Kerry surge plays into his hands this time around. Sometimes it really is all about momentum, especially with those crazy few who have failed to decide. And do you think that the Republican brass are disappointed that the last debate is purely focused on domestic policy just as Howard has won re-election in Australia and elections have been held in Afghanistan? Ouch. Think I agree with Saletan's assessment of Kerry striking out looking in Debate 2, and especially love the 9th inning rally analogy to the Kerry close. Just need that little Jeter magic to get him home by November 2nd. I want to post more later on two issues - my surprising growing support for the concept of Mandatory Voting, and the fact that the Iowa Presidential Market on the race has never acted as a true market. But it is off to Speaker's Corner. More tonight. And down the stretch Kerry comes.

Bush's Mistakes

On the mistakes issue, I agree it was Bush's worst moment. But again, my frustration lies in the fact that Kerry had a chance to bury him there. He focused solely on the war and the failure to continue the pursuit of Osama - this must be popular in the focus groups because he and Edwards seem to be inordinately obsessed with the talking point. I think he even dropped the infamous Halliburton word. But imagine the true response that Dean, or even Michael Moore, might have opted for: "The President has just been asked if he can recall any mistakes, and the only ones he will admit to are in some of his appointments. Maybe he is still mad at people he appointed that he has since fired for disagreeing with him. But do YOU see any mistakes made in the last four years? I do - in creating the largest deficit in our history, on the first loss of jobs in a Presidential term since Herbert Hoover, in his tax cut to the wealthiest 1% that has worsened the financial mess, in failing to focus on al Quada in his first months in office, in failing to hold anyone in the intelligence community accountable for the worst attack against us in our history, on the failure to protect social security, on the failure to find the funds for No Child Left Behind, in failing to invite allies back to the table in the reconstruction effort, in the handling of the Abu Gharib prison debacle, in declaring Mission Accomplished in Iraq when our soldiers continue to die everyday, and on and on and on... And the President's single greatest problem is not even that his policies have directly contributed to these gross errors, but that HE DOESN'T EVEN SEE THESE AS MISTAKES. Presidential elections are often seen as referendums on the incumbent, and President Bush tonight asked you to 'look at the record'. I ask you to look at his - and ask, can we afford another four years of this?" I wonder if it is pathological - the story of a spoiled kid who was never told he was doing something wrong. The case against a presiding Chief Executive has never been clearer though. Kerry must capitalize. In the next debate he must respond to the ludicrous taxation accusations and address Bush's new favorite word - Recession. I do like how the narrative is playing out.

Home cooking

Gallup has some interesting results on last night's debate. The debate was a draw overall, 47 to 45 Kerry (compared to Gallup's 53-37 win for Kerry in the last contest). Partisans went along party lines. But interestingly enough, the poll had a higher sample of Republicans ("the sample of viewers had more Republicans (38%) than Democrats (32%) or independents (30%)"). Even more pertinent is the breakdown of independents: 53 to 37 Kerry, which by chance is exactly the same overall numbers for the last debate. This makes sense to me. I think Bush and Kerry were speaking to different constituents: Bush to the base after the debacle in Coral Springs, and Kerry to independent voters. In that sense, both effectively achieved their objectives. Remember, Kerry has a natural advantage on domestic issues among independents, so for the next all-domestic debate it could be a whitewash, if he won even this one by 10-15 points among swing voters.

Spin

Probably right about the missed opportunities. But as a would-be independent 'lean Kerry' voter, though I was not convinced entirely by Kerry's positions on terrorism or Iraq, the moment that stuck out for me was, unsurprisingly, the last question to Bush where he was asked to name three mistakes that he had made in his administration, and he could not come up with a single substantive one. I now wonder whether his unwillingness to admit failure in any aspect is not just a political ploy but a pathological condition. (This was demonstrated in a famous Bush gaffe, where instead of saying 'Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me,' he could literally not bring himself to say the last part. Now I realize that was pathological, not ignorant.) On a side note, if you want to see something truly amazing, click on the video contrasting Bush 10 years ago with today, located here. The spin controls the cycle, so let's wait and see. The main contribution blogs have made to the election are the control of the spin and the fact checking. They are the element that Rove didn't fully count on. The VP debate already seems like ancient history, doesn't it?

Lost Opportunities

The Globe and Mail analysis today asks the question of Bush: steadfast or just plain obstinate? Perhaps I saw an animated Bush and feared the worst, but happily it seems that this is failing to register with the voters this time around. Happy that you saw such a clear victory - what sticks out in my mind are still the missed opportunities. It is supposed to be a debate, and I would rather have seen Kerry attempt to pre-empt Bush's obvious talking points in an effort to score the proverbial knockout blow. Take just one example, on taxes. Why didn't Kerry end his speech by stating the obvious... the President is now going to get up and accuse me of raising taxes on everyone, a blatant distortion that goes against everything I have said since I began my campaign for the Presidency, etc... As you point out, Bush rambles bizzarely when challenged on such issues. Make it a true debate between the candidates by pouncing on his statements. Show that you can jump on your opponent's words and turn them against him. Kerry did not lose, but I really think he had an opportunity to hit a home-run that passed him by. Off to watch England-Wales, then Democracy, then a party with vulnerable volleyball girls (so I am told). Keep me posted on the Oklahoma race. As you must know, Carson is Kos' favorite candidate of the cycle. It would be something.

Demolition in Saint Louee

I was "wishy-washy" on the results of the last debate. But I think this one was a demolition. Kerry over Bush on points and style. In a big way. Some notes. The laugh-out loud moments were unbelievable. DRED SCOTT???!?!? Who knew slavery was an issue in '04. Bush absolutely explodes, speaks out of turn and shouts down the moderator. Awful style points. Bizarre moment: the $84 from the timber company. We'll hear more about that over the next week. Bush makes some nice points, to be fair: compares his own unpopular (internationally) policies to Reagan's. Unpopular but effective and ultimately proven correct. Nice mention of Afghanistan's election tomorrow -- can't believe that wasn't used more. Kerry hoisted Bush on his own petard -- the record -- more effectively than Bush did on Kerry's Senate record. Kerry quotes Bush from 2000's town hall: I think prescription drugs from Canada are a good idea. Kerry on said drugs: Bush flip flopped and broke his promise. But we passed it in the Senate. Kerry doesn't pound the job numbers as much as he could. Though gets in a nice barb about the president's failed promise on 5+ million jobs. And did not hit home runs on the easy target of the environment either. But Kerry did achieve one rhetorical point well: selling tax policy, making it pretty easy to figure out for anybody watching. All Bush could say is, "that's not credible." Weak. Bottom line: Bush needed this one, but he looked angry and impatient. Bush was better at body language this time, but it wasn't enough. The crowd looked like it appreciated Kerry a lot more, with some visibly bored, yawning and scowling when Bush spoke. I think it's fair to say barring complete collapse or pulling Osama out of the proverbial hat, you have your 236 EV bet covered. UPDATE: As of midnight, the pundits seem to have come to the consensus that this one was a draw. Shows how good I am at picking up the general debate vibe. As Kerry said tonight to rhetorical effect, "Go figure." But I'm sticking to my guns. I came into this with the mindset that it was the first debate and that the slate was wiped clean, and I call it like I see it: a clear Kerry win.

In brief: Terribly Disappointing

Bush seemed strong, if you buy into any of his bullshit. Kerry had two or three chances to demolish him, though. Bush talking about looking at the record? Bush setting him up on the mistakes question? Kerry had a number of chances to bury him and failed. And so, both sides will back their man (see National Corner v. Dailykos). What will Sullivan think? It seems so easy for Bush when so many people believe in what he is saying, says Craig Gartner, even when it flies in the face of truth. I have to agree. I go to sleep pessimistic, but hope for some strong spin among the undecideds. I just hope they can see through Bush's bullshit, even if Kerry didn't necessarily help them along... A soberer assessment tomorrow.

Adlai, love you madly

Definitely in my top five, and in direct competition with the catchy "I Like Ike": has there been a sexier political advertisement than Adlai Stevenson's "I Love the Gov"? Love that first rhyme. I love the Gov', the Governor of Illinois. He is the guy that brings the dove of peace and joy. When Illinois the GOP double-crossed, He is the one who told all the crooks, "Get lost." Adlai, love you madly, And what you did for your own great state, You're gonna do for the rest of the 48.

You Like Ike, I Like Ike...

Two quick preliminary thoughts: the 1st Presidential advertisement for Eisenhower in 1952 is classic - but watch at your own risk, the jingle is still bouncing around in my head. Also, the 1964 ad campaign of Johnson stands up superbly and is easily the most compelling up to the 1980s where I ran out of steam. Interesting that it was the Democrats' first foray into the Madison Avenue agencies, and that Kennedy had originally hired them back in the summer of '63. I am headed to London and a rendezvous with Gartner and Guinness at the Three Tuns, a place I am sure you know well. I am going to try to catch the debate, as I agree on its importance. Can Kerry explain his "global test"? Will Bush keep his frustration in check? Does Kerry continue to push an "Out of Touch with Reality" accusation on his opponent? Here we go again, much more on the flip side....

Top Five Presidential Advertisements

In the spirit of a High Fidelity-esq contest, and thanks to the genius of the American Museum of the Moving Image, I propose a challenge to fill a few hours in the days ahead. Every Presidential Advertisement is available here. Take a few days and let me know your selections. I have a few hours to kill here in recovery from the freshers' bender, so I will pass on my choices in short order. May the best advertisement win.

Beat Me in St. Louis

I was going to draw an analogy between the veep debate and a sitcom spinoff that outshines the original show with its superior wit, banter, intelligence and writing, but I'm not going to waste anybody's time doing so. That's because I don't think this debate mattered a great deal. Typically the VP clash is meaningless, yet this one has been hyped, for good reason perhaps, because the KE comeback cycle demands it, the contrast between the VP candidates was so stark, and because maybe, just maybe, there might be another "you're no Jack Kennedy." I don't think any of these things happened. For the record, I saw it as a draw, which may be a victory for BC because the bleeding has been stopped temporarily, though Edwards definitely gained credibility in the minds of many. Some, like Will Saletan at Slate and Andrew Sullivan, thought Edwards "destroyed" Cheney (Sullivan: "Cheney was road-kill"!). I can't comprehend that line of argument. Nor can I comprehend those who argue it was decisive for Cheney. Both sides stuck mainly to their talking points, neither embarassed themselves with memorable gaffes, and it remained generally civil, though there were points where it looked like it might combust. If I had to pick a moment the media will be spinning for the next week, it will be the "never met you before" Cheney foolishness, reminiscent of Gore's skewering in 2000 for having claimed to meet a federal disaster officer or something in Texas when he hadn't. I thought both sides lost points on unanswered questions: Cheney looked ridiculous for not responding to charges that he voted against Meals on Wheels for seniors and the Department of Education (!), though I thought Halliburton was an old canard. Edwards had the quicker rebuttals, esp. to the votes against weapons systems in the Cold War, but stumbled when Cheney brought up Iraqi sacrifices in the war and when asked what qualified him to be VP (I think he was trying to avoid a Quayle). Some have made an issue of how little Cheney mentioned Bush; I hardly noticed. The moments I'll remember: Edwards' series of indictments against Cheney's house voting record (MLK Day!) and Cheney's very human response to Edwards' raising the point of the Cheney daughter's sexual orientation. Bottom line is, this was the side show, and one that got quite slow near the end. The stage is set for what has become THE pivotal event of the campaign, in my mind: the "Beat Me in St. Louis" town hall showdown between the candidates at the top of their tickets. You can bet Bush will be better prepared this time.

The Power of Blogs

It is 5:30AM and I really need to get some sleep, but I really cannot resist making two comments - both gleaned from dailykos diaries, but providing proof and personification of the Dean/Trippi insight that the Internet has changed everything: (1) Cheney suggests half-way through the debate to visit factcheck.com (instead of, presumably, factcheck.org) Some Democratic genius instantly checks this, finds it open for sale, buys the rights to it, and links it to a George Soros site entitled "Why we must not re-elect George W. Bush". Fast and absolutely Brilliant. (2) Cheney also brutally slags Edwards' record in the Senate, claiming never to have met him until the debate that night. Again, almost instantly, the Kerry campaign puts up a photo of the two VP candidates sitting beside each other at some National Prayer Breakfast a few years ago. I find that most hilarious because it stuck out as one of Dick's best lines, proved utterly false almost immediately by the power of the Internet. As if the Republicans could have posted a picture after Benson's attack that proved Quayle actually was Jack Kennedy to rebut that powerful attack line... Maybe the Veep debates mean nothing, maybe not. Bottom line. The political landscape has changed this cycle, irrevocably. And it is so much FASTER.

The Veeps Draw (?)

A quick (overly pessimistic?) opinion after watching the 90 minutes randomly at St. Cross college... a rather even debate on points, although a few moments where Edwards might be seen to carry the day. Cheney's attempt to equate the coalitions of Bush Sr. and Jr. was easily my largest yell at the screen, and the purest example of his many, many "distortions". I was also puzzled by the Vice President's early attempt to blast Edwards' record in the Senate, allowing the trial lawyer to launch the closest thing I have seen to a knockout blow since Premier Russell McLellan paused for 7 seconds of dead air after being asked by Hamm if he would balance the budget. "He even voted against the release of Nelson Mandela." How did they even HAVE a vote on that? Classic. Would have been much more effective for Dick if he had waited patiently for the actual question about Senator Edwards' experience instead of trying to use that to answer something about Israel-Palestine. I also thought John John's answers on jobs and the poor proved particularly effective, given that Cheney launched tangently into Education because what else can this administration say? And honestly, how can you possibly refer to Iraqi casualties when talking about the deaths of coalition forces? You invaded their country, you killed many of their innocent people. The gall to suggest that only 50% of the costs and lives of the invading forces have been American is staggering. On that alone I would say that Edwards won, but let me be more cautious in my optimism before I check the rampant spin. Even a draw is a victory for Kerry. I assume the consensus will find that, on the whole we have just seen another substantial debate, with superb moderation and excellent questions, that only serves to reconfirm the opinions and beliefs of those who watched. It may just stabilize the race, unless undecideds really connected with the seductive Edwards. Change vs. More of the Same, though. How legendary is Carville's old 1992 cue card now?

The Onion's Take

Honestly, is there anything out there as funny as the Onion? I will always remember the post-September 11th article, entitled "Bush urges Terrorists to form Nation he can attack" and now Sullivan has pointed me toward another gem. "Documents Reveal Serious Gaps in Bush's Presidential Service Record." Go and read it for yourself. Parody is most hilarious when it is true. My favorite of many classics:

According to Rocklin, the most damning documents were generated at roughly one-day intervals during a period beginning in January 2001 and ending this week.

Studying at Oxford

Classic moment in the introductory lectures today, as the guy selling his course on International Economic Law fields a question from the crowd: "Is it worth taking if you have already studied WTO cases?" His classic response: "Well, did you study it here? No? Then I do not think that will be a problem." Hope all is well in Toronto, my friend. Since our readership is rather limited (although I did invite Pal a few days back so perhaps he will begin showing up here as well) I think it would be more than appropriate if you dropped a quick note on your plans these days. Life in Oxford is as glorious as ever imagined, although the work begins next week. Plenty to discuss, and I look forward to welcoming you back for some Super Strongbow at some point during the year. Best of luck in the hunt.

Friedman on the Iraq Mess

Well, it is nice to see Tom Friedman back from his book in time for the November election. And unsurprisingly he has a pretty pithy column about the situation in Iraq and his disillusionment with the manner in which the Bush administration has carried out this war:

But my time off has clarified for me, even more, that this Bush team can't get us there, and may have so messed things up that no one can. Why? Because each time the Bush team had to choose between doing the right thing in the war on terrorism or siding with its political base and ideology, it chose its base and ideology.

As terrible as Kerry's wavering and politically motivated stance on Iraq has been over the past year, he now finds himself in a box partly due to the absolute ineptness of Bush's conduct on the war. I was talking to a middle-aged Scottish guy a few weeks ago on a bus from Oktoberfest to the Ryanairport of Frankfurt, and he wanted to know what Kerry would do differently in Iraq. The answer that he would mostly stay the course drew a reaction of scorn and derision. But what else can you do? Nader's plan to pull out the troops now is ridiculous, and Bush has bungled the situation so much that pleas to other countries to help will surely fall on deaf ears if Kerry gets inaugurated in January. The summit idea is laughable, but what else can you say? Except maybe to say that you cannot put Humpty Dumpty back together again, but at least you have the judgment to insure that this never happens again, and that you can make the best of a catastrophic situation? It is a "I am not Bush" argument. It is difficult to make this argument straight away, which is why the "victory" of Kerry in the debate helps him enormously, even though the global test line has the Bush team on offence again. Fortunately it is the last word on Iraq for a little while. The domestic side should give Kerry ample room to pounce next week, on issues that resonate. The only question is what random Oxford college will I find to watch it this time around?

Fooled me, once

I was about to blog about a series of ridiculous quotes Kerry made on the stump today, dulling any momentum he might have had from last night's debates. Then I learned the quotes were completely fabricated by Fox News. And once they were called on it, Fox took the story down from the site. Here they are, from talkingpointsmemo.com:, which has preserved the web page for posterity and evidence:

"It's about the Supreme Court. Women should like me! I do manicures."

About himself and the president: "I'm metrosexual — he's a cowboy."

Fox handily lets us know after this quote: A "metrosexual" is defined as an urbane male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle.

What the hell? Josh Marshall on Talking Points has apparently called Fox News and is awaiting an explanation. Should be interesting to see. In the meantime, a news service that I used to follow (its partisanship firmly in mind) has revealed itself to be a ridiculous fraud. Maybe I should have known better in the first place.

UPDATE: Fox News has the following apology and retraction on their web site:

"Earlier Friday, FOXNews.com posted an item purporting to contain quotations from Kerry. The item was based on a reporter’s partial script that had been written in jest and should not have been posted or broadcast. We regret the error, which occurred because of fatigue and bad judgment, not malice."

They report, you decide.

Jazzed

I think it would have been difficult for Bush to avoid 3 debates, given that this seems to have emerged as the historic number. The biggest gamble was made by the Kerry camp, in making the first debate purely foreign policy. Kerry weathered it extremely well, looking Presidential in the process, and now has the comfort of talking about the domestic side. They gambled that Kerry could hold his own on national security and now that has turned up roses. If you remember Bush's convention speech, the first half on domestic issues was terribly dull and uninspired. Bush only got his groove on when he started into the Iraq bit, using words like "freedom" and "liberty". So that is why a solid Kerry outing in the opener, and the clear if minimal win, is that much more important for him. Show that you can be trusted on security issues, then beat Bush by pummelling him on jobs and the deficit. No real flip-flopping there, and disastrous Bush policies as far as the eye can see. So I agree with Kos. On the morning after, I am jazzed. Kerry has turned his corner. Let the Republicans get nasty if they want. Two more debates in the next two weeks mean that it will be increasingly hard for them to control the message. Kerry has begun his charge down the homestretch, and soon Bush will be hearing footsteps....

So now...

...do you think the Bush people regret giving into three debates, now that their man has squandered his 'home turf' in the first? I bet Vernon Jordan is sipping champagne somewhere. And in terms of aesthetics, three things are on my mind. One, how did the Bush handlers, who do everything with kid gloves, let the POTUS look short, hunched and cowering at the podium, especially in comparison with the VERY presidential-looking Kerry? Ouch. Two, what the hell difference did those lights make? They were distracting, and are the dumbest innovation to debate I've ever seen. Made it look like a game show. Three, does the tie-color always go (D)-Red, (R)-Blue? Notice how Kerry never mentioned Vietnam by name. Genius. Just like the Weld opener in '96. Bottom line: Because Kerry is emerging as the great finisher he's legendarily purported to be, you're going to win that online bet (unless, of course, Bush pulls bin Laden out of a hat). The challenge for Kerry is to keep the momentum in the face of what promises to be a nasty onslaught from the Republicans. And it will be nasty.

What about Poland?

Perhaps my optimism was overblown (as I was looking for any reason to cheer against Bush at 2AM in England), but I still see it as a very effective night for Kerry the morning after. Let the narrative spin out. Sullivan has some great commentary today and I would highlight a number of quotes. Take this one:

In stark contrast to the Bush-Gore debates, it was Bush who was grimacing, furrowing his brow, almost rolling his eyes and at the very beginning, looking snippy and peevish. He seemed defensive throughout and because his record was front and center - and Kerry's long record in the Senate almost unmentioned - he was actually on the defense.

As he says later, at the very least it was a draw on Bush's hometurf, which is just cause for celebration. Surely we always have key lines that we would love to have thrown into the post-mortem, but I was extremely pleased most of all about the demeanor of the two men. And in a debate in which you cannot ever expect an all-out "win", you have conservatives lamenting and Kerry supporters rather pleased. A lasting image I have is of Bush crying out "what about Poland?" as if they are a crucial ally in the Iraq war. Bush looks flabbergasted and out of his league, while Kerry (ever the prosecutor) brushes it aside gently to continue his meticulous deconstruction of the Bush record. I think this is why Kerry is the nominee, because none of his primary opponents could have bested Bush in precisely this (right) way. MSNBC's poll had Kerry 68% and Bush 32% on who won today. I am not saying that this means anything, but in the next few days, leading into Edwards/Cheney, it gives Kerry some momentum back. All you could have hoped for and more. It is what he needed, and what he got.

Not exactly

I don't know if I share your opinion. After much thought, Kerry gets the slight edge, though as I was watching it I thought Bush was doing reasonably well. I thought Kerry was long-winded at times (one cringer was his use of "factually incorrect" instead of "wrong"), but Bush was not much better with his halting, sometimes logically inconsistent comments. I also thought Kerry was on the defensive a bit too much of the time, though I guess he had to clear up some of the bigger misconceptions about his flip-flopping. Didn't it seem also that Bush always had the last word? Kerry missed many, many opportunities to land the decisive knockout blow that I think he needed. The biggest, I think, was the point Bush made about Kerry's unpresidential behavior, sending 'mixed messages' to the troops. My canned response for Kerry: "I'll tell you what unpresidential mixed messages are. They are calling upon America's enemies to "Bring it on." And unpresidential mixed messages are mockingly looking under furniture in the White House for never-found weapons of mass destruction." Bush had the best rhetorical turn of the night, and perhaps the best I can recall in my limited presidential debate experience. When accused of having told untruths and misleading the nation about Iraq, Bush replied with a series of: "I don't think John Kerry was misleading the nation when he called Saddam an imminent threat. I don't accuse him of misleading when he said that anybody who said that the world is no better off with Saddam Hussein out of power does not deserve to be president." Very effective, I thought, and potentially devastating. If not unexpected. Kerry carries the day, but not overwhelmingly, in my mind. He came out confident, landed the punches where they needed to be, and looked like a president. In short, he did what he needed to do, if he did not land the knockout blow. I've never seen Bush like this before. He was surprisingly eloquent and spoke in detail at length at some points, but was snarky and came across as less presidential than his opponent. Thing is, Bush wins if the arc holds: he as the decisive, competent leader, and Kerry as the waffling, indecisive brahmin. I think on that front the debate has to be a victory for Kerry, because there is at least the element of doubt now that Bush is the leader he claims to be.