Seems everything else is subscriber, why not here? I have to subscribe to cable TV to hear presidential debates. I'd rather pay to have the features we used to have here. There is no argument one can make to say the current setup is going to be superior, and of course it's a mess now.

That there were problems keeping the old system running in good communication with TPM is not the issue. It would have cost money to get some custom software written that would make that work, but it is far from an insoluble problem. It was whether it was worth it ($$) to keep the ragged kludge together.

It's worth it to me, and I'd pay at least $100/yr for the privilege. But there are some things money can't buy, and I  guess the past is among those. Mainly, money won't buy what someone is not selling.

Going somewhere else is one answer, but what we had here was Josh's pull with good writers, them interacting with us, and TPM's profile pulling in new readers. That can't be duplicated.

I'm running on empty but this last gasp of writing is to suggest that we have lost a coffeehouse but gained a Wal-Mart. Yes, there is coffee, yes, there are tables, and yes, there are customers. But you don't go there for the coffee, or the people.

And the purpose of the Wal-Mart coffee shop is not coffee or conversation, but keeping the customers in the store longer. That is the purpose of TPM Cafe. It's a reversal of an old media model, that of providing a good read to earn income, into the modern, TV version, that of providing an audience for the advertiser.

Even though newspapers earn most of their income from ads, the product got started with the older model, and it still carries some of the original emphasis. TV and radio, by comparison, got started with an understanding that only advertising could pay the bills, without a purchase needed to hear programs.

So now we have the abomination of TV programming that is designed only to render up an audience for advertisers, delivered by a subscription service that promised to free programming from that, and yet insults us with advertisements that we have paid to see. And blogs are discovering the power of this business model.

TPM is now another audience-delivery system. It's a living, I guess.

The Cafe has become just another string of comments. These disconnected thoughts are as trivial as pennies tossed into a fountain. Without interchange, there is no conversation, and without that there is no communication.

There are ventures that depend on a smallish group of clients, like a neighborhood book store or hardware, or a music teacher, or a doctor. These don't yield great wealth, but usually just a decent income. The small customer base is nonetheless reliable, since it has nowhere else to go for quality.

An alternative is a large customer base, without loyalty, and whose whims are unpredictable, but which can become large enough to mean wealth for the business owners. This usually requires a more common-denominator kind of product. I feel TPM is going in this direction, looking for more traffic at the cost of quality.

The quality of guest contributions is only one factor. Writers would drop by less for the traffic than the sharp questions thrown at them. Surely they will enjoy more traffic and higher profile, but will their writing improve, or decline in quality?

The quality of conversation was high here, and often noted as a reason to stay after a first visit. That it attracted a few instead of many was offset for the users by the fact that the few were interesting and fun.

The fun is gone, since I can't easily remember where there might have been an exchange happening. I lose interest in plodding through the archives to find where I, or someone, might have said something I might remember. The new blog submissions bury previous offerings in an real hurry.

If someone writes and no one reads, was anything said?

It was nice knowing you folks.

The President has the bully pulpit, and that's all. He or she can veto, but that can be overridden. So whether Hillary or Obama has the best plan is less important than 1) whether they can win the election, and 2) whether they bring in a usable majority.

Neither candidate's health plan would succeed in today's Congress, although Obama's probably would get closer to success. But if either achieves a real sweep in the Senate, especially, then Congress may add features neither candidate has asked for. I think Obama is more likely to generate the excitement that would have those long coattails, and I have less confidence that Hillary would provide any momentum for reform candidates for House or Senate.

The experience argument naturally implies Hillary would work with those she knows. But if Congress is all new people, or even a significant fraction of new reps, friction might be the result of Hillary hoping to run the show.

Obama is far from ignorant about Washington, but likely has fewer markers to honor, fewer old alliances to maintain.

When an executive wants action from Congress, the best way is the pulpit, to mobilize the public to write and call their reps and senators. Obama would be better at that than Hillary, unless she sends Bill out to bully the pulpit. And would that work? Or would Bill acting as presidential spokesman just turn people off?

OK, I have a beef. The new look is more look than new. It seems too much like other places, and too much structure crowds out the content that used to fit on the Coffehouse page. Formerly, the first glance showed three, maybe four, posts by guest contributors or bloggers. Now we see only one, with all content in a single column This will make the top position hugely dominant, and pretty much kill other discussions.
I guess the recommended and new Reader Posts is nice, but all threads are ugly to me now, since the avatar/image next to each comment distracts from the content of the post, and if it's unfilled it is an empty suit, a stand-in, a placeholder that conveys zero info. I have to look to the bottom to find a name.
Many of us prefer anonymity, so expect mostly empty silhouettes, with scattered blank smiling faces in between. I used to post a photo on my personal page, but don’t want to punish readers y having my dumbly smiling face constantly there, without changing to acknowledge that actual conversation. I'll be as inappropriate as the smiling newscaster talking away while the scene behind him is fire or something.
News flash---words convey specific info that pictures can't without hugely inefficient comic-book frames. It's waste of bandwidth. Here's a test of the value of pictures for political news---try watching TV without the sound up. By comparison, try listening to TV without the pictures--99% of the news comes through. ABC even runs an FM channel that uses their news feed. Guess they think it has value.
Lose those dumb photos, make room for more conversation.