Kos, Jerome and the Dean denial

First off, I think Howard is doing a good job as DNC chair and I am glad he the chair instead of Roemer or Vilsack. Just so you don't think I have an irrational hatred of Dean.

However, HoHo did himself in in 2004. Kos and Jerome in their new book seem to believe that it was the DLC and its allies that killed Dean. Not true. The DLC certainly called Dean names, and saw his rhetoric as dangerous for the party's chances in 2004, but if they are really as trival and on the downswing that Kose et al say they are, how could they take down a major presidential candidate.

The fact is, Dean blew millions on infomercials in Wisconsin, PR events in central park, and on Trippi's old ad firm itself. In December of 2003, the Dean campaign was focusing on getting endorcements from folks like Al Gore and Jimmy Carter. The burn rate of the campaign was amazing. Dean had thousands of his grassroots supporters, mostly from ultra-liberal, storm Iowa with with fancy hats and scarves and it backfired. Iowans got really annoyed with all the handwriten letters, the calls, the out of staters telling them how to vote. Meanwhile, Kerry had hired the best Iowa organzier in the early days of 2003, had locked up Ted Kennedy's endorsement and took out a mortgage on his house to barnstorm with Kennedy around Iowa. Edwards gave the same speech over and over again in small crowds of Iowans and agreed to a devils bargin with the Kucinich folks to insure an inflated result.

Meanwhile, Dean ran negative ad after negative ad against Dick Gephardt. Man, even typing that name makes me laugh, what a joke of a candidate. Gephardt's allies, not the DLC's, did a soft money ad comparing Dean to Osama. While Dean's campaign was wasting money, time, and effort on the wrong things, Kerry and Edwards focused on organizing reliable caucus goers.

And guess how they finished: Kerry, Edwards, Dean, Gephardt. THAT is what killed Dean, not replaying his crazy scream speech over 600 times.
Kerry had the entire Mass. Democratic establishment campaigning for him in New Hampshire. he had been broadcasting ads there since his 2002 senate reelection. Dean meanwhile, got a strong second in New Hamsphire, which is next door to Vermont and was his second home in 2002 and early 2003.

When I was in the "Live Free or Die!" state for Clark, I saw giantic Dean sign after giantic Dean sign held by Dean hat and scarved fans, who chanted their little slogans "hope not fear" and the like. Again, the spent lots of money changing the Dean signs from blue background and yellow writing to yellow background with blue writing. And again, for what?

Clark in the end did better than Dean, winning Oklahoma where Dean never won a single state (I don't know the delegate totals, but Clark had lots of 2nd places in the 3/2 states).

Please Deanies, don't blame the DLC for Dean's horrific flop in the primaries. Clarkies ultimately blamed our loss on our boss hesitating to get into the game so late that he couldn't compete in Iowa and that he got in so late that the only staff left to hire was Gore 2000 douchebags.

photoshop of the day

created by Corey Anderson

a change in Israel?

With Sharon suffering from a massive stroke just prior to leaving his ultra-conservative party (and being replaced by ex-PM Benjamin Netanyahu as party leader), just what will happen to Israel?

Most signs point to a Benjamin Netanyahu's resurgence as the next PM...he is trying to orchestrate a massive resignation from Sharon's cabinet. It was odd that Sharon in the last few years suddenly became a peace maker of sorts by force. Most recently, he unilaterally moved out of the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu makes Sharon look like a hippie and I predict more violence and bloodshed by bothsides.

After reading Jared Diamond's "Collapse" I think one of Israel/Palistein's real problem is not exclusively religion or "ancient ethnic hatred" but rather a biter fight over scarce resources. The Land of Cannan is afterall a desert, and these kibbutz(es) are really the main arm of the radical jewish settlers, not reconquering the kingdom of David.

I am neither jewish or muslim, as you might have guessed from my photo, but I believe the fate of Israel is critical for the U.S. and the world as a whole. With the resurgence of Iran--its sucess in Iraq, it nuclear program, its radical government-- there are legitimate fears that things in the middle east will get much worse before they get better, especially, with Netanyahu in charge (as I opined above).

All comments and thoughts are welcome on this subject, as always.

beyond corporate malfeasance

As I am sure most of you know by now, there were about a dozen miners trapped thousands of feet under the earth in West Viriginia. Only one person survived for the 40 hours it took to find the miners, mostly because of the life-threatening levels of Carbon Monoxicide that made it slow going for the resuers. At about midnight, the families of the miners (and their friends and neighbors who were with them) in the church across the street from the mine got word that everyone was alive, despite all the bad news that they had been hearing all day.

Bells rang out, and jubulant people streamed forth proclaiming a miracle. For 3 hours-- 180 minutes-- no one from the company bothered to tell the families or the media that this rumor they heard was tragically dead wrong. It is one thing to keep hope alive, it is quite another to let happy lies go uncorrected. The company could have told the families that they didn't know yet, that it was too soon to tell. Instead they let them rejoice until 3 AM and then broke the devastating news.

I don't know if a law was broken, other than the dozens of safety violations that went unenforced under Bush's OSHA, but what this company did to the relatives of its former employees was immoral. They can say it was a "miscommunication," they can trot out the governor to offer up a bogus explaniation, but the fact remains that they didn't correct the rumor when they had 3 hours to do so.

new year, same old crap

Well happy 2006 everyone. May this year be the one when corrupt Washingtonians see their bags packed by the voters and juries. While Bush boot licker Alberto Gonzales is investigating who blew the whistle on the NSA's warrantless wiretapping, we are supposed to ignore the fact that Gonzales was in this unconstitutional power grab neck deep. This marks at least the second time he gave his client (Bush) really bad legal advice by telling him what he wanted to hear (before it was its ok to torture). The job of WH counsel is not as an advocate of the president but as a confidential legal advisor. But at this White House, everyone has to be an advocate, or they are shown the door (or given nicknames of Democrats like DOJ's number 2).

Meanwhile, Abramoff sang to the Feds, giving up at least Ohio Republican Bob Ney and Texas Republican Tom DeLay. Who knows who else is lying underneeth Jack's bedsheets? Montana Senator Conrad Burns? Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich (whose last name is ironically German for honest)? The breadth and depth of this scandal could be such that the Justice Department would be in jepardy of handing a political victory to the Democrats by convicting enough members of Congress to sway control of a chamber (most likely the House). Of course, like AbScam, that won't happen.

Oh and sorry for not posting for so long. I was enjoying Christmas, all the family in town, our new place, and a week off with my wife. We got lots done, like installing a new lighting system under our kitchen cabinets. I litterally was lying on the stove hammering into the cabinets. And I got about half-way through Jared Diamond's Collapse. It is the flip side of his amazing (and Pulitzer Prize winning) book Guns, Germs and Steel. I love books that try to say one thing (or a couple of things) were/was the determining factor(s) in human history (like Salt).

Next week, I begin school again, which features teaching East High School students about law. I wish I could tell you more about what exactly I will be teaching and so on, but they haven't told me. Should be interesting and hopefully fun.