15 posts from July 2008

Since the time Senator Hillary Clinton was in the primaries and started to take Senator Barack Obama seriously there has been talk of the media being in love with Senator Obama and not giving other candidates equal time in the news.

Senator John McCain’s camp has begun to use the same defense for why he is not getting the media time that Senator Obama seems to get.

I have been thinking about this for the past few weeks and I noticed something this week and I watched it carefully before posting about it.

The biggest offender at this minute in terms of getting Senator Obama in the news an keeping him the main story is……..Senator John McCain himself.

Almost all of Senator McCain’s airtime as of late has been focused on talking about Senator Obama or he ties whatever he is saying to something Senator Obama is saying.

As I watch this unfold what it does is give everyone reason to question Senator Obama’s motives and thoughts.  The next thing that happens is there is discussion and debates for hours or pages on Senator Obama, his motives, his thoughts, his past, his future, etc.  The result has been the Senator McCain is taking a man who we all know very little about and creating a media environment where we are focused on Senator Obama and we are becoming more familiar with him that we have been to probably any other candidate in history. 

Every time Senator McCain speaks in public we are all left hungry with questions about Senator Obama which has been translating into interest in Senator Obama who seems to have a very likable public persona. 

Is this really the best strategy for Senator McCain to use?  It seems like a silly ploy at this point in the game.  I mean, Senator Obama has been struggling to get people to think they know who he is and what he stands for and that had been playing in Senator McCain’s favor.

Now we know all about his parents, his grandparents, the people he went to school with, about his legal work, his work in the inner cities, past identity crises, how he will do in working with foreign leaders, and every time large groups of Americans all begin to say that Senator Obama doesn’t make sense or is fuzzy about something John McCain is the one who brings the point into the public, the media debates it and Senator Obama has plenty of time then to say whatever will make him look good.

It is true that Senator Obama seems to get all of the positive media even when he has done or stated something stupid, but it is Senator John McCain that is causing this to a large degree. 

The entire planet knows that Senator McCain is not even close to as good of a public speaker as Senator Obama is.  How can Senator McCain’s camp not see that creating an environment where he has another opportunity to speak publicly is to fight the battle where Senator McCain is weak and Senator Obama is strong? 

This last trip that Senator Obama took was nothing more than a publicity stunt that only served to prove that people (even foreign leaders) find Senator Obama more likable than Senator McCain.  Likeable does not make a person a good president (but it doesn’t hurt and doesn’t hurt your chances of being elected). 

Senator McCain has just spent an entire week trying to attack these travels, raising the debate and once again giving Senator Obama a hungry public that is eagerly awaiting his discussion of this trip.  In other words he just gave Senator Obama the perfect opportunity to address the public in public speech (his strength) and legitimize a trip that really was nothing but a publicity stunt.  Senator McCain has created the opportunity to turn a trip that even the media had questions about into a great step forward in his campaign. 

Who is running this campaign anyway?  I would think that that with all of his military background Senator McCain would know better than to take your weakest troops and attack the enemy where they are strongest with no other plan. 

A smart John McCain would find subtle ways to take away the legitimacy of the trip and what happened in these places and appear to be ignoring the whole thing because it was truly as irrelevant as it seemed. 

Senator McCain is accidently become the biggest supporter of Senator Obama in the country and keeps getting on my television “shooting himself in the foot (no Donald Rumsfeld puns intended).

The New York Times has refused to print an Op-Ed Editorial (a ridiculously long one) written Senator John McCain in rebuttal to Senator Barack Obama’s article titled “My Plan for Iraq.” 

In Response the McCain camp has seized the opportunity to pull a play out of the Senator Hillary Clinton playbook and start crying foul in the media.

For those of us who follow my blog, this is one of those activities that completely put me off when Hillary Clinton did it.  Then we had that stupid debate where something like forty-five minutes were spent in an obvious attack on Senator Obama that embarrassed out nation and political system worldwide.

I have to admit that with Phil Gramm’s comments recently about us being a nation of whiners, this sure sounds like a lot of whining to me. 

I listened to and read a few debates on this subject over the past few hours and have my two cents to add.  As a person who does not particularly believe in either of these candidates, I have to say that I believe that there is a good reason for there being more media attention on Senator Obama than Senator McCain.  Senator McCain is dull to watch and even more dull to listen to.  Members of the press, please do not suddenly inundate us with boring clips of Senator McCain smugly rambling the same thing over and over again trying to be able to say that you are being fair (particularly if he is in front of a green screen or hiding his face because he does not know how to answer questions about Viagra).

Let’s look at today’s footage.  Clips of Senator Obama with troops and world leaders in fancy buildings, playing basketball, waving at crowds and so on.  On the McCain side we have Senator McCain (already struggling with questions of his age) with former president George H. W. Bush looking like they are fighting to stay awake long enough for the photo-op and some sound bites of Senator McCain saying exactly the same things (word for word) that he has been saying for a week and a half.

There is an old saying that we all are probably familiar with that I think applies here.  Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.  What if the media decides to give him equal time, will that really help him.  I for one doubt that more media time can help him unless he has a complete personality makeover of some kind. His campaign personality is not made for public consumption.  I can take about two to four minutes a day of his personality when he is trying to attack Senator Obama before I find myself irritated.

I am not the only one.  Remember that debate from the primaries where there was an approval meter on the screen while each candidate was speaking.  Every time Senator McCain would attack another candidate the approval meter would absolutely tank.  The American people (according to that meter even the ones in his own party) do not like it when he is on the attack.

Senator Hillary Clinton managed to gain some ground on Senator Obama using the “the media likes him more” tactic, when she also remade herself as the shot drinking, barroom, party girl everyone could relate to. 

I think if you are a candidate and the media is not covering you, it may be because you are not a candidate of interest to enough of their audience.  It may also be that you are not doing anything that is newsworthy or even video-worthy. 

I may or may not believe what Senator Obama is saying and his voting record may not match what he is saying, but I sure do like to see and listen to him more.  I do not think that that should dictate who one votes for, but it should dictate who gets the airtime.  If you are not good in the media, you have no business crying when the media does not want to cover you. 

You also cannot have someone call the entire nation a group of whiners and then begin whining this much and think people wont start getting exasperated.

I also have heard a lot of complaints about this really large op-ed article that the New York Times refused to print from people who have never read it.  Has it ever occurred to those complaining it may have just been poorly written or structured?

The White House today undermined the argument that the John McCain Camp has been making that what the Iraqi government was supporting and Senator Obama’s troop withdrawal plan are not the same thing by publically coming out against what the Iraqi government has stated.

This is clearly no longer a “General Time Horizon” in the eyes of the Iraqi government, but is the actual goal they are pushing for.  The fact that an unpopular Whitehouse, is pushing against a timeline to withdraw from an unpopular war, while the government of that country is saying, “thanks, but it is time for you to go,” seems to completely undermine the Republican Parties attempts to help Senator John McCain.

If this had just been left alone by the Whitehouse it might have blown over in a few days, but now with all of the press getting ready to begin discussing how these statements angered the Whitehouse this story is about to begin to monopolize the airwaves. 

This stand by the Whitehouse is also likely to start a war of words with the government of Iraq and do even more to convince them that the Americans need to go soon.

Senator McCain had just mounted an offensive on Senator Obama with repeated talk and adds describing how he does not understand how to work with foreign nations and has been repeatedly wrong about Iraq.  Just as people were beginning to bite on that line, the Whitehouse begins to assault the government of Iraq and bring attention to the fact that the government and Senator Obama seem to agree.

The feeling one gets when hearing the Whitehouse response today is that they knew all along that the government of Iraq felt this way and were in negotiations about it,  but simply wouldn’t tell the American public in support of Senator McCain. 

If that is the case, it looks like the Iraqi government has grown weary of playing American politics the Bush Whitehouse way and has decided to hope on Senator Obama and to even support him publically.

I am not one to agree with all of the negative nonsense that is out there about President Bush and his Whitehouse, but this may leave him looking like the person who ticked off the Iraqi’s (again) and who undermined Senator McCain’s run just as he was gaining momentum.  I suppose it all depends on how far the Whitehouse will go with this media campaign against the Iraqi government.

I have to wonder, if the government of Iraq wants us out in that timeline, much of Capitol Hill wants us out in some kind of timeline, and a decent percent of the American population wants us out in a timeline, if it may not be a good idea to firm up the “General Time Horizon” and leave room to reexamine the state of the country near that time.

I guess if you are too busy trying to play partisan politics and get the person from your party elected, one may not see this as a reasonable option.  But, with all the talk of how well the Surge worked, it seems like the requests of the Iraqi government for us to set a date to leave would not be that far fetched. 

All this talk about how well the Surge has worked has backed the Whitehouse into a corner and may be the boomerang that went up to make Senator John McCain look like the better person on Iraq only to come back in his face when he says setting a timeline is unreasonable.

I mean either it worked or it didn’t.  If it worked, we should not need to be there much longer.  If it didn’t, work all that well, then a timeline is in fact unreasonable and Senator McCain’s assertions will be seen as lies (when they are in fact simply exaggerations).

I am still left with one huge question:  Did the Whitehouse think this through before they made these public statements?  

With this (unpopular) Whitehouse on your side, it must be hard to run for president!

The most frequently cited occupation by donors to the McCain campaign was "retired."   This is an interesting statistic when one considers the future of American politics. 

I am personally not a fan of either the Democratic or the Republican party as I think that the current party system as it stands is clearly broken and does not truly represent the American public (most Americans are far closer to the middle than either of the parties).

If are however stuck with these two parties as the primary makeup of our government, then it is imperative that both be almost equal in strength as a system of checks and balances.

Twenty of the last twenty eight years (when I started really paying attention to politics) have been under a Republican president.  Now the statistics are showing that the financial base of the Republicans is out of the work force and aging.

What immediately comes to mind when I hear this is that the people who are supporting the Republican Party predominantly are nothing like me, (I am not retired any time soon and looking at my retirement plan I may never be) and are also going to find their numbers diminishing over time unless new, younger supporters can be found.

There seems to be an evolution happening as the younger generations seem to suddenly be taking an interest in politics.  One of the biggest changes is a completely different worldview that more and more seems to differ from the Republican Party.

Compound that with the fact that African American voters and many Latino voters seem to vote Democratic consistently the Republican Party looks like a ship that is slowly sinking.

I am not sure where I first heard this saying, but it is a key to the future of both parties:  “He (or she), who controls the youth, controls the future.”  If the Republican Party cannot find a way to start attracting more of the youth, minorities, and those still in the workforce, there will be a huge price to pay for their party and for the American public.

I for one am not convinced that a government that is on the extreme left (or the extreme right) for that matter is good for anyone. 

To compound the problem, there is what many perceive as the weakening of the Christian Right Wing over the last two years.  In my opinion and observations that group is not weakened, that group just simply doesn’t have a horse in this race.  Senator John McCain, who eight years ago was publically attacking that group is not their first vote to represent them, but their votes in the primaries were divided between other candidates and somehow this guy came out on top.  Now there is this unsure attitude about Senator McCain and that group will probably still vote for him simply because they do not want a Left Wing president.  However, they are not truly excited about him.

I said all of that to say that there is the beginning of an alienation of a large chunk of the base of the Republican Party which also threatens to shrink the support base.

A Side Note

I for one consider myself a normal middleclass American with two children and a dog.  My wife and I work and commute long distances to our jobs.  We save struggle etc.  I served my time in the Marine Corps and love my country.  I am a Christian man and believe in God.  I am also of mixed racial origin. (African American, Caucasian, and Latino)

All that being said, I have to be clear that the more I explore what the parties are doing and compare it to my views, needs, concerns, desires, and beliefs, neither is cutting it at all.  Each party has a few good points and several things that just defy anything that could even call itself common sense.  

The way I see it, it is like there is a bunch of people playing a giant board game and my family and I are the (expendable) pieces.  This is why the idea of doing what is popular with your party or the supporters of your party as opposed to what is right is such a sticking point for me.

I have felt powerless for years and have felt like the two or three people who vote for the other weirdoes that run as independents every four years.  This is why I am blogging and discussing this. 

The problem is that we the public are swayed more by who has a better sales pitch this time or the party we consider ourselves affiliated with instead of realizing that we are dealing with the lives and futures of billions of people around the world. 

This vote and our say are of grave importance and should be treated as such.  

Oh my!  G.O.P. presidential hopeful, Senator John McCain just took a quick punch in the stomach from an unexpected source.  That source is Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who stated “Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic.”  He also called Senator Barack Obama’s sixteen month suggestion the right timeframe for withdrawal.

Wow, I guess that the Democrats may not have had a person in the Whitehouse for eight years, but they seem to have a Democrat in office as Prime Minister in Iraq. 

Senator McCain has been trying to convince us that Senator Obama does not know what he is talking about as far as what to do with Iraq pretty consistently for a couple of months now.  Well Prime Minister al-Maliki seems to think that Senator McCain is the one who does not know what he is talking about.

This is a big change of fortune for Senator McCain who has in polls been repeatedly stated as the candidate that the people think will better handle the war.  That idea looses credibility once one realizes that the people in Iran, particularly the government don’t buy it.

The reason that Prime Minister al-Maliki gave for the need for the United States to get out of Iraq quickly was that the U.S. staying to long would “cause problems.”  That is no mystery I suppose, as not only do some within that country not particularly like the United States, but the surrounding nations are not the biggest United States fans in the world either.

This is a big blow to one of the huge strong areas in Senator McCain’s campaign.  Over the next few days, his campaign is going to have to campaign against the Prime Minister of Iraq as well as Senator Obama to hold that ground.  This is compounded by the fact that Senator Obama is on a trip (I think of it more as a publicity stunt because of the timing) to Europe and the Middle East to prove that he is capable in terms of foreign relations.  He has been over there one day and already there has been a coincidental statement by a leader that says Obama is right and McCain is wrong.

The trip by Senator Obama may only be a publicity stunt aimed at convincing us of something that cannot happen on a last minute trip, but already it is showing signs of being a success. 

I do not see this as Senator Obama doing anything right, I see it as blind luck.  Although, I am not convinced that the government of Iran is not secretly more in favor of Senator Obama as president verses Senator McCain and is just hedging their bets in case Senator McCain wins by not letting the world know it (yet).

The thing I wonder is if the Obama camp had any idea that this news would break today when they scheduled this trip??? 

I suppose that is not probable, but everybody likes a good conspiracy theory!!

Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain's campaign co-chairman, (and former Texas Senator) Phil Gramm has resigned from his post with McCain, but not before a bit of irony.  The man who had the nerve to insult the American public did not go down with a little whining of his own.

This drama began when Mr. Grimm stated publically that we (the American public) were a “nation of whiners” because of the public’s grumbling and outright complaining about the economy. 

This man, as part of stepping down this man stated “It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Senator McCain on important economic issues facing the country.“

Boy that sure sounds like whining and complaining to me.  Maybe that means that the McCain camp is a “campaign of whiners, in a mental candidacy.” 

All of that running his mouth (whining) about us whining (i.e. insulting all of us who are part of the American public), and he leaves the post with whiny comments like this.

This again proves that these candidates are not able to choose people for key positions.  This means when one of these men is elected president he will be appointing and picking people for various positions.  If one of these candidates fills the government with people who make scary, amateurish, and stupid mistakes in public, we are in for a tough four years.

This man, as part of a campaign for president insulted me and most of America by calling us whiners and now finally I get to return the favor.

Mr. Gramm;  Oh Stop Whining and Complaining, Shut-Up and Quit

I suppose now I have to finish this because I have to some whining and some meditating on my mental recession to do.

Senator Barack Obama has decided that the best way to give voters confidence in his foreign policy abilities by traveling to Europe and the Middle East to meet with some of the leadership of these nations.  My question is what difference does this make at this point?

We have about four months before we have to cast our votes and somehow this man is going to be the poster child for international diplomatic relation because he took a trip near the end of the campaign.  How does this trip prove or disprove claims that he is the better man to handle foreign relations.

All eyes are watching this trip that in reality is just a symbolic trip to get us thinking he is an international diplomat of some sort.

Senator Obama has been trialing in polls related to foreign policy and needs to chip away at that one area if he expects to get elected president.  I am not convinced that this is the way to build that sort of confidence unless the voting public as whole sees this vacation and is suddenly convinced that getting on a plane and meeting a few important people briefly suddenly makes you an expert on foreign relations. 

Do we not all know that any trip that a candidate makes at this point in the election is not about diplomacy it is about campaigning to be elected?  Candidates say and do a lot of things while campaigning that they will not do if elected.

Taking a trip, directly after Senator McCain just took some trips is probably a necessary move to counter any wild claims that the trips he took as part of his campaign were somehow relevant.  The same applies for him; he is a candidate looking for votes and this may have nothing to do with what he would do as president.

If this was really what Senator Obama or Senator McCain were all about these trips would have been transpiring a couple of years ago.

Everywhere I turn I see articles or hear news that says the all eyes will be watching Senator Obama.  As if this trip would make or break his campaign by exposing his weaknesses.

This trip is an okay gesture, but proves nothing, here or there about who the best president is.  I do not believe this trip to be anything but a stunt.  A stunt that may have been made necessary by Senator McCain’s recent trips (stunts), but a stunt none the less.

Are we going to get to some real issues again anytime soon?

What is wrong with everybody?  Fox is reporting that Jessie Jackson used the “N” word in that conversation he had on the air thinking he was of the air. 

The point of his off the air conversation was to say that Senator Obama is talking down to black people.  I can think of few things one can do to “talk down” to African Americans that are as impacting as use of the “N” word. 

The crazy part of all of this is that this man thinks of himself as an Obama supporter.  This man also thinks of himself as a leader in the African American community and here he is on tape talking about Senator Obama in such a negative light and is using some of the worst language that one can use in discussing African Americans.

I have never been a huge Jessie Jackson fan, but this is unfortunate for him that his private conversation was recorded like that.  But, I guess he has nobody to blame but himself for whispering into a microphone in front of a camera and assuming that nobody would hear him.

I suppose that this is a sign of the passing of the baton from one generation of leaders in the African American community to the next generation.  This particular incident is just one indicator as to why the baton needs to change hands.

President or no president, the multi-racial and well-spoken Senator Obama seems like a good choice to be a leader in the African American community.

As far as the election, the only thing I think that has happened here is that Jessie Jackson has just lost much of his voice in terms of influencing this election and possibly within the African American community as a whole.  For Senator Obama it seems as though this is just a small distraction from the regular stresses of the campaign.

I just head a story about an airline that decided to cancel a flight because the waiting passengers were angered by the fact that the crew showed up late.  This just reinforces what I have been suspecting as of late.  Customer service is a thing of the past and the airlines have lost their minds.

I have a friend who was flying recently with United Airlines and had several delays, missed flights, one arrival that was so late it cut back on his business trip, and one flight that was so late that he had to cancel the business.

On the last actual flight that he did get on, he was to fly to San Francisco International and connect with a flight going to Portland.  Both flights were late, but the flight he was on that he actually arrived hours (yes plural) late.

The airline formed a line at a counter staffed with only two personnel for all of the people who had missed connecting flights and began the grueling task of going through the disgruntled “would be” passengers  two at a time.  Around that same time two other flights arrived just as late and added more people to the line.

From there he noticed that the airline just booked people for the next day and gave them nothing to eat, no place to sleep (they all slept on airport chairs or the floor unless they paid for their own hotel room) no cab, no blanket, no nothing except the little bag with toothpaste and soaps.

My buddy tried to call the airline and immediately knew that he had been transported to the world of outsourced phone centers.  He was bounced around, stalled, hung up on several times (“accidently”), argued with, and finally hung up on after hours so he could not call back.  He called back two days later and went through the exact same process except the staff was far ruder.

When all else failed he tried the U.S. offices and spoke to fussy domestic staff who simply referred him back to the same number.

Finally my friend got frustrated and searched out the email address of the C.E.O. of United Airlines and sent him an email.

When all was said and done (there was more than what is listed here) he finally received an email that said they were sorry but they could give him a voucher for one-hundred dollars (which is barely enough to park at the airport at current rates) or five thousand frequent flyer miles (which will fly him exactly………..zero miles)

On a trip he had booked with three destinations and with stopovers for most flights only one flight was on time.  He had to sleep in the airport.  He didn’t get to complete his business.  He spent two days on the phone with rude employees and being hung up on and this is what they give him.

United Airlines has gone to new lows in customer service and is sinking fast into worse customer service.

There needs to be a way to fight back against this poor treatment of passengers.  There has to be some way to force these people to consider changing these terrible business practices.

Periodically there is talk of the government stepping in and regulating how this industry is run.  Due to the bad service my friends and I and stories like the one today, I am convinced that that is a need or the industry is going to fall into more turmoil and we will suffer with this sort of terrible service.

Reports are starting to surface stating that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is in a big rush to get information about credit card defaults.  Why is our government in such a rush to get information about credit card defaults? 

Lets think for a second.  The economy is bad, gas is slowly drifting towards five dollars a gallon, huge numbers of people are loosing their houses, unemployment numbers are through the roof, and so on, what do you suppose people are using to stay afloat a little longer?  If people cannot pay anything else it is only a matter of time before they start defaulting on credit cards also.

Is the next bubble to pop in an explosion leaving millions of casualties and destroyed institutions going to be the credit card markets?  It seems like a reasonable assumption. 

I wonder how many people in deep financial trouble, who are barely able to juggle bills, will fill out that credit card application that comes in the mail to get a month or two month breather.  Then another and another until the lenders stop giving this person cards due to “escalating credit.”  Then when that person is no longer able to use one card to pay another what will happen?

The key difference between this bubble and the other recent bubbles to burst is the idea of the minimum payments.   As long as a person can pay the minimum payments it is good way to alleviate some of the stress by spreading out the payments for a long time until you are back on your feet to pay it off. 

The reality is that if you could not afford all of the bills this month and had to stretch the some of this months payments out using a card, not only will you probably have the same problem next month, but you have added a new payment to the list of things you cannot afford to pay.

This may not be a problem, but in thinking this through, it is definitely an area the government needs to be monitoring and to have a plan on what to do if it becomes a problem.

Banks have been absolutely pummeled over the past few months and it looks like there may be a few more beatings on the horizon.  It is like being in the ocean getting pummeled by waves, soon after you get hit by one another one is not far behind ready to crash into you.  Then another and another and another.   

If all of this mumbling about the government being proactive is in fact true, it is definitely a step in the right direction, but the economy may have to get far worse before it gets better. 

I wonder how many waves of bursting bubbles we will have to endure before a way out is found.