TPM folks considering further opining on the choice of Sarah Palin, ought might also consider sitting down with that latte and boning up:
The Code Of The West: What Barack Obama can learn from Bill Ritter
by Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker, Sept. 1 issue.
P.S. Cutty Snark is obviously excused from reading the article.
Advanced Obamanomics:
A Free-Market-Loving, Big-Spending, Fiscally Conservative, Wealth Redistributionist.
Barack Obama has a lot to say about economics. How does he reduce it to a bumper sticker?
By David Leonhardt, New York Times Magazine, August 24, 2008.
I read it; recommend it.
USA Today, 02:44 PM/ET, August 21, 2008:
Barack Obama told USA TODAY this afternoon that "yes," he has made up his mind about whom his running mate will be -- but he would not reveal the name or just when he will tell the nation about his choice....
Obama said he wanted somebody who is "prepared to be president" and who will be "a partner with me in strengthening this economy for the middle class and working families."
He said he was looking for not just a partner but a sparring partner. "I want somebody who's independent, somebody who can push against my preconceived notions and challenge me so we have got a robust debate in the White House.".....
Democrats Get Big Gift for Denver; New York Republican Donates $1 Million
Danny Hakim, New York Times August 19:
Tom Golisano, the Rochester billionaire and registered Republican, donated $1 million on Friday to the host committee of the Democratic Party’s convention in Denver, making him one of the largest donors to the planning efforts surrounding the expected coronation of Barack Obama as the party’s nominee next week.
The donation comes as Mr. Golisano, a three-time candidate for governor, has been using his wallet to re-emerge as a heavyweight in state politics, and worrying Republicans that he is leaning to the left in his latest political incarnation....Mr. Golisano, who always ran on the Independence Party line and never got more than 15 percent of the vote, also has not ruled out another political run of his own, saying at a press conference last month that he thought “every day” about running for governor again....
there are two things I've read recently that I'd like to share with those who have similar interests:
Michael Kimmelman's article in today's New York Times/Arts, "With Flemish Nationalism on the Rise, Belgium Teeters on the Edge," which sums up with this quote from Els Witte:
“In a global society, nations are less important,” she answered. “It’s a moral question. Does a culture have a right to stand up for itself? More than that: Do unity and nationhood take priority over one’s culture? That’s not just an issue for Belgians but everyone.”
and
The pages and pages of comments on this article in the July 22 Independent, "The picture that shames Italy," where it becomes clear that it's not only gypsies that are "the other" for many.
Can Leah Daughtry Bring Faith to the Party?
By Daniel Bergner, New York Times Magazine, July 20:On Sundays she is a Pentecostal preacher. During the week she is planning the Democratic convention....
In her positions as Dean’s top aid and the convention’s top official, Daughtry, who is 44 years old, is leading the Democratic Party’s new mission to make religious believers — particularly ardent Christian believers — view the party and its candidates as receptive to, and often impelled by, the dictates of faith. She sparked this crusade, both to transfigure the party’s image as predominantly secular and to take enough votes from the Republicans to win this year’s presidential election, in the aftermath of George W. Bush’s 2004 defeat of John Kerry. And in her vocation as a Pentecostal pastor she stands for faith in an extreme form. There is nothing equivocal about her belief. Hers is a religion not only of divine healing but of talking in tongues....
...in early 2005...Dean....asked her to stay on as chief of staff and backed her plan to hire a team, to be known as Faith in Action, that would help the party to hear, and to be heard by, voters of deep religious conviction. Gradually she put together the F.I.A. group that has met weekly at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington: three evangelicals, a Catholic, a Muslim and a Jew, all with backgrounds blending work in religion and politics. (F.I.A., Daughtry says, will very likely be melded now with the Obama campaign for the coming months, then recommence on its own after the election.)....
This will be the first Democratic convention to start with a religious service, another sign meant to prove that the party is serious about belief, and the F.I.A. members, who have worked for months on how best to inject faith into the convention, want to be sure the gathering is led, and well-attended, by a wide range of the religious....
The big tent theory behind this all is a political good. But it is ok to politely refuse the pompoms and quietly think "ick ick ick, no thanks, I think I will be busy doing other stuff that week?" This is coming from someone who has often disagreed with the more radical fundamentalist atheist contingent in the blogosphere: the idea of an "old timey religion" populist revival convention really does turn me off. I really do still like the overall political marketing potential of a moderate version of the separation of church and state thingie, and I think a lot of fellow Americans cynical about politics right and left might agree with me on that front.
is conveniently located at the link above every comment box that says "comment policy":
Does TPM have a comment policy?
Yes! TPMCafe and the TPM Media network follow a simple set of rules for acceptable commenting.
1. All political viewpoints are welcome. However, hate speech of any kind, libelous statements or threats to fellow users or others will be deleted and may be grounds for suspending or terminating a users account.
2. Four letter words are not banned, but we ask that they be used sparingly as overuse coarsens and undermines the debate.
3. TPMCafe is a venue for lively and passionate debate. But insults, personal attacks and the like make that sort of enlivening exchange impossible. If you just want to scream and taunt, please go somewhere else. If you have any question about what is and what's not acceptable, follow this rule: If you wouldn't use a certain word or talk to someone a certain way in a real-life political discussion at a Coffee House, don't do it here either.
Reporters Say Networks Put Wars on Back Burner by Brian Stelter, New York Times Business, June 23, 2008. Excerpts:
....Interviews with executives and correspondents at television news networks suggested that while the CBS cutbacks are the most extensive to date in Baghdad, many journalists shared varying levels of frustration about placing war stories onto newscasts....
Both Ms. Logan and Mr. McCarthy noted that more coalition soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in May than in Iraq. No American television network has a full-time correspondent in Afghanistan, although CNN recently said it would open a bureau in Kabul.....
Mr. Friedman said coverage of Iraq is enormously expensive, mostly due to the security risks. He said meetings with other television networks about sharing the costs of coverage have faltered for logistical reasons.
Journalists at all three American television networks with evening newscasts expressed worries that their news organizations would withdraw from the Iraqi capital after the November presidential election. They spoke only on the condition of anonymity in order to avoid offending their employers.
Former Clinton Campaign Manager Joins Obama Team by Adam Nagourney June 16, 2008:
...Patti Solis Doyle, who was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign manager until she was ousted in a staff shake up in February, will join Mr. Obama’s campaign as the chief of staff to the vice presidential candidate – whoever he (or she) will be, campaign officials said. Ms. Doyle will take the position before Mr. Obama announces his choice for a running-mate....
Later today, the campaign is set to announce the hiring of Stephanie Cutter, a longtime Democratic strategist who worked as Senator John Kerry’s communications director in 2004, as chief of staff to Mrs. Obama....She also will lead a war room to fight attacks against Mrs. Obama....
I also found this little bit interesting, from No Ordinary Candidates, No Typical Campaign by John Harwood, June 16 New York Times:
...Mr. McCain’s talent at close-quarters communication underlies his challenge to Mr. Obama to join him for 10 town-hall-style meetings...Aides to Mr. Obama’s campaign say he won’t duck the challenge completely, which alone suggests that voters may hear a fresh form of dialogue...Mr. Obama’s aides say he will seek to connect with voters and debunk the “just a speechmaker” rap against him, with intimate appearances in voters’ homes and workplaces....
Economics: Which Way for Obama?
By John Cassidy, New York Review of Books, June 12 issue
A preview taste:
...Should Obama win the nomination, political considerations may well force upon him a more interventionist position, but his first inclination is to seek a path between big government and laissez-faire, a trait that reflects his age—he was born in 1961—and the intellectual milieu he emerged from. Before entering the Illinois state Senate, he spent ten years teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago, where respect for the free market is a cherished tradition. His senior economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee...When I spoke to Goolsbee earlier this year, he said that one of the things that distinguished Obama from Clinton was his skepticism about standard Keynesian prescriptions...If Obama isn't an old-school Keynesian, what is he? One answer is that he is a behavioralist—the term economists use to describe those who subscribe to the tenets of behavioral economics...
Ok, I want to hear an opinion on this from those folks on Maggie Mahar's Medicare-related threads who have been arguing that if we would just stop stopping spending so much on end-of-life treatments on eldery people, everything would be hunky dory. So should Senator Kennedy be allowed to have expensive cancer treatment paid by Medicare if he wants it? Or should we just demand Medicare only pay for a hospice for "comfort care" and let nature take its course? Or is it that rich old people with brain tumors have the extra choice of trying to live a couple more years and poor old people have the single choice of going to hospice?
Mr. Obama does not want to appear as if he is pushing Mrs. Clinton out of the race, preferring instead to treat her gracefully as a worthy Democratic fighter, not as a stubborn nemesis.
He issued a directive to his campaign not to overtly declare victory at a rally on Tuesday in Iowa, a sentiment he telegraphed in Montana on Monday where he appealed for support in the state’s June 3 primary.
“We still have a number of contests, including Montana, before we’re able to secure the nomination,” Mr. Obama said, speaking to an audience in Billings. “Senator Clinton has run a magnificent race, and she is still working hard, as am I, for all of these last primary contests.”
From Obama Is Expected to Hit a Milestone in Today’s Votes, New York Times, May 20.
from the headline story of Thursday's New York Times (Republican Election Losses Stir Fall Fears) :
“This was a real wake-up call for us,” Robert M. Duncan, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in an interview. “We can’t let the Democrats take our issues. We can’t let them pretend to be conservatives and co-opt the middle and win these elections. We have to get the attention of our incumbents and candidates and make sure they understand this.
It just never ceases to amaze me how many people on this site and others are so puzzled over why Hillary still wins elections. Must be some sort of trick, some device that made it happen, right? Like bad coverage from CNN for Obama - and that is really rich, by the way. Last weekend, when showing Bill Clinton stumping in Ohio, CNN's headline was "Help From Hubby." Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall CNN tagging a segment on Michelle Obama with "Help From Wifey."
The fault, dear Obama supporters, is not in the stars but in yourselves - Hillary won because more people voted for her, because outside of the invective-filled echo chamber Clinton haters live in, there are lots of people in this country who find her to be a smart, capable politician who would make a fine president. And they vote. Yeah, stupid voters....
Posted by DKDC
March 5, 2008 11:58 AM Permalink
...."He's running a theological campaign," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who ran for president in 1984 and 1988. "At some point, he took off his arms and grew wings"....Dallas radio talk show host Mark Davis mocks the Democrat's events as "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show," after the old Neil Diamond hit....
Campaign Journal, Gromer Jeffers, Jr., The Dallas Morning News, Feb. 26, 2008
