Why would I want to learn to catch my own if you're just going to give them to me? :)

How about the Right beleives that government is a necessary evil, and the Left believes that government is a necessary positive.

I think for every snappy saying you have to distinguish "right" as pre- or post- Bush.

And some of us on the right have figured out that trying to teach some people to fish is like trying to teach a pig to read: it does you no good at all & tends to annoy the pig.

actually my favorite quote along these lines is from PJ O Rourke:

"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn.
The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it."

I think this has become even more relevant post-Bush.

Great quote from a great book.

I think the problem that we have with education in this country is not how much we spend on it. Memphis City Schools spend a lot more money per student than Shelby County Schools do, but who has the higher test scores and who has the better education? Those that went to Shelby County Schools.

The problem with teaching is how do you measure results and how do you measure the effectiveness of the teacher? If you have a teacher that has a bunch of behind the curve students and gets then fractionally behind where they should be, that is something that should be commended. However, that doesn't happen. Conversely, if a teacher has a bunch of standouts, and the kids wind up closer to the standard when she is done with them, that is a poor teaching job. Unfortunately, it is impossible to measure that. A simple grade or test does not adequately measure teaching performance. But what will?

I will say this, there is plenty o problims with publik edumacation, but mure monee for it izn't the problim.

Could this become a much bigger problem?

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5326078&page=1

It is already a very big problem in a lot of states.

http://www.accesshollywood.com/artic...aria-menounos/

Obama, wife and kids do Access Hollywood.

Sometimes I don't know what planet you have been living on. Is 2000 that long ago that you couldn't not remember the downturn and .com busts of 2000?

Do you have any idea what you are saying when you say, "far, far right"? I guess if one positions himself on the far, far left, then a moderate would look far right.

flere: I will respond to your thoughtful post later. I just had to get a knee-jerk reaction out of my system.

Sure, they are both humanistic, but with the right wing the heavy emphasis is towards folks living (and born) on your fair shores.

I don't disagree about your comment re: left and right wanting power. Just another reason of many why I'd never call myself either.

I'm living on the planet where Clinton had a 65% approval rating his last year in office. My whole point is Gore should have used him more, because he was still popular. That's hardly a controversial point.


Not sure what to do for you if you can't understand what I was saying. Never said Bush wasn't a moderate. I said he had to go to the right because of the pressure Buchanan applied during the primary. This distraction set him back a little bit. I'm surprised you took such a strong reaction to this, because it wasn't even a criticism of Bush.

dola

According to CNN Exit poll in 2000, Clinton had a 57% favorable rating and 65% of voters thought the US was on the right track.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/res...ex.epolls.html

I would say that weariness is the same thing as fatigue. A change usually results from people that are tired of something.


He did lose interest in campaigning, that much was clear. Perhaps he was weary of typical political BS, both in Washington and on the campaign.


I agree. The common adjective applied to Gore at the time was 'wooden'.


I disagree about the first part. Different segments have always been "scared and angry" about certain politicians or parties, just different degrees. You should have been around in 1968. Talk about scared and angry - makes today looks like a sunday school potluck. People were that way, to varying degrees, with Carter, Reagan, Bush1 and Clinton. And certain people will be that way with McCain or Obama. Most partisans cannot be objective - it always something fundamental that riles up the hatred or contempt. It's either hatred for the Religious Right or Atheist Left (other people's words, not mine), or color of skin or demographics or something. It is taken out on politicians belonging to the opposition.

I agree with the second part.


I was going to mention the generation aspect but only in specifics. You can't say that it was simply boomers vs the oldies. I remember reading some of the independent press from the Bay Area when I was interested in learning more about the anti-war/peace&love movements of the 60s. What was said specifically that Clinton is "one of us". "Us" not meaning boomers but "anti-war, draft dodger". He was the golden child to finalize the 60s revolution in obtaining the powerful position in the world. I also recall that this same group soured on him very early on when he advocated positions all over the spectrum.

Apart from that, Clinton did have the appeal to independents and moderates (along with Perot). I know a number of long-time Rep voters voting for Clinton because they wanted change or 'breath of fresh air". That didn't last long either when he went to positions further left of his supposed centrism (gays in military and some of his Cabinet appointees).

This perhaps played a part in the fatigue, weariness or whatever voters felt just after 22 months when the 1994 election came around.


Both candidates have two perceived weaknesses: Obama - black and liberal; McCain - old and Republican. (Don't chide me for these labels, all four will be an issue in the campaign, whether they should or not.) Obama is getting a boost (how much, hard to say), just like Clinton got a boost. But in the end, it is not going to come down to issues or age, just likeability and/or charisma.

Yes, I know that very well. I simply took issue with "a strong economic situation", which we did not have in 2000.


My reaction had nothing to do with Bush (which you know I have no love for, nor the neo-cons), but the erroneous phrase of "far, far right" in general. Whether Bush had to go right of Buchanan (whatever that mean since it's hard to pin down Buchanan on the spectrum) or whether Bush was there all along, I don't know. No, my reaction was simply that even a hardcore neo-con would not be considered far right, when put in perspective of true single-line political/cultural spectrum.

Just a quick drive-by observation that I genuinely believe that is worth noting on this point.

If I got a phone survey today, I'd answer/agree that we're heading in the wrong direction. But that's not indicative of what direction I think we should be heading.

Just a point that seemed worth making.

Whether we had one or not doesn't really matter. The public obviously thought we did, and they certainly weren't "weary" of the incumbent, which is the point that I was responding to.


Well, I guess it depends on what you consider "far, far" right, which would be a really silly exercise. It just depends on how you're looking at the scale. My whole point is that He had to move away from the center, and it hampered his re-election prospects.

I was a bit surprised that you took such an antagonistic tone in responding to my post, because I wasn't making some leftist political argument. I was simply stating what happened in the 1992 and 2000 elections.

Me too, except I want to go in a direction that neither candidates, nor those on the red/blue spectrum are advocating.

Don't know why either, it was just one of those things.

Fair enough. But I think you'll agree that this is perhaps the most unsettled electorate since 1968. Maybe 1980 gets close.

Since you were there, do you see parallels between RFK (hope, change) and Nixon (experienced, safe)?


I'm not, and it never is. But as you note, the Boomer cohort helped move Clinton to victory in, I think, a large part because he was a Boomer and someone with whom they could identify.


1992 and 1994 strike me as two elections where modern-day partisanship really came of age. The Senate in which I served an internship in 1992 seems very different from the Senate as it is described today. Heck, I even remember having a very cordial conversation with Orrin Hatch & Kay Bailey Hutchinson, both of whom praised my boss at the time, George Mitchell.


Yep. Isn't this pretty much always the way, though?


Oh, I agree absolutely. I didn't mean to suggest that this 80% agrees on a particular direction. But if such a large part of the electorate feels we're going in the wrong direction, that has to be a big factor in how the campaigns proceed.

We've been through this: it's because you're old & cranky. :p

Right on cue, we have this from the guy at electoral-vote.com:

What's going on here? Why did the Dems (and Obama) vote for this in such large numbers?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080710/...t_surveillance

I thought they were against this (as are most Americans)?

My first two guesses would be that either 1) most Americans aren't against it and the didn't want the backlash, or 2) voting against it would turn the upcoming election into a fight on whether or not Democrats want the terrorists to take over the country...more than it already is.

Nobody wants to be considered soft on terrorism? It seems like this is still a chief concern among voters.

Or, alternately, they were against it when a Republican was President, but now that it seems likely that a Democrat will be sworn in next January, they are for it.

Damn straight.

I'm glad to see that outcome though. What I don't want to see in this election in shouts of "fear mongering!" anytime anyone brings up national security. I think if everyone's thinking reasonably and Bush is out of the picture and can't polarize us, there will be more agreement than we'd think.

This is it, I think. Plus that telecon lobbying money.

If you have some time, read Glenn Greenwald's coverage of this on his blog.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

He's a screaming lefty, but he made some solid points on this one. He argues that Democrats cave on issues like this because they don't want to be painted as "weak" by Republicans. Of course, by constantly caving in they do get called "weak", and rightfully so.

But long story short, you can't vote "no" on an anti-terror bill in an election year. The Dems just don't trust the American people to understand the bill and what it means, so they have to go along with it.

So what happens next year when the price of oil gets reduced to $70 and the stock market takes off? Will McCain or Obama take the credit for a boom when they had nothing to do with it?

Probably whichever of them wins. No one would believe the loser if they tried to take credit for it.

Any reason to believe that the price of something that is in diminishing supply and increasing demand is going to magically be cut in half within the next year?

That's pretty funny. The price of oil isn't going anywhere but up, baby!!!!!!!

Did you see T. Boone Pickens energy plan that he is putting out? Quite interesting.

Cut in half, maybe not, but I believe it will drop quite a bit after the election.

Given that much of the run-up are speculator-driven (and fear-driven), the 'normal' price for oil should be about $80-$85 according to an energy supply expert I talk to. Plus, I suscribe to the Law of Expected Change where nothing will ever remain the same over a period of time and things will change all on its own regardless of attempts affect outcomes.

It was one of those crazy cases where the merits of the compromise bill actually caused people to vote for it, despite the hyperbole still coming out of the ACLU and other groups that remained opposed.

Essentially, the President and Republicans conceded on provisions that will require a warrant to be issued before any surveillance of US persons can be done, whether those persons are located domestically or overseas. They also agreed to some pretty stringent oversight provisions to ensure that the methods used by federal law enforcement and the intelligence community comply with the Fourth Amendment. So, the Dems won on the Constitutional stuff. Yay team.

The GOP won on telecom immunity. If telecoms can produce in court documentation from the Department of Justice given to them at the time all this stuff happened where the DOJ gives them an official opinion that what they were being asked to do was legal, the civil lawsuits against them can be dismissed. Although no documents such as these have been leaked or been confirmed to exist, most folks think that something official was given by DOJ to the telecoms.

A number of Dems voted against the bill because they hated giving up on immunity. Others, like Senator Obama, voted for it because they felt that the framework set up by the bill was good and would prevent future Administrations from pulling the same shenanigans as this one did.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...act_id=1157621

For what little it is worth, I think that if the courts were to ever prevent John McCain from being sworn in as President based on this hyper-technicality, it would be horrible. Which does not stop the question from being interesting. But it represents one of those areas where ivory-tower academic law needs to differ from the real world.

Eight years after Bush v. Gore, you simply cannot have the Supreme Court taking center stage in another presidental election.

There's already been a unanimous Senate resolution that he's a natural-born citizen, and the Constitution gives Congress the right to "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization." It won't be an issue. No "ivory-tower academic law" thinks that McCain doesn't qualify under the constitution.

Well, at least we know what the first lawsuit against McCain will be if he wins the election.... :D

Catching up a little:

1. I am glad to see the buzz about Sam Nunn being a potential VP. He has always been one of my favorites, for a politician.

2. McCain and now, Nunn, need to look at a recent map of Europe more.

3. Obama had the head of Freddy Mac (or was it the other one) as his VP chair before being ousted for some reason. Do you think this was pre-emptive knowing the scandals that are rocking both mortgage giants? Sounds like Obama being Big Mortgage could play like McCain being ex-Big S&L. The people with lots of money are corrupt and it's a shame that they have too much say in politics.

4. So far the spending has been about equal but what's interesting is the $1m+ Obama is putting into each into GA, VA and NC and $3m+ in FL.

5. Congressional job approval hits new low but what's interesting is that the declining poll numbers can be attributed to sliding support for Democrats: Over the past month, their support has slid from 23 percent approval in June to 11 percent in July. During that time, the Republican Party’s approval rating has risen, from 15 percent in June to 19 percent in July. Frankly, I think those job approval numbers are way too high. Until we wake up to the follies of Congress, it won't matter who is President, Congress will continue to do their crap.

6. I am sick of the same tired rhetoric of politicians quipping "same tired rhetoric". Oh wait... Seriously, that is one of the most stupidest response to something that a politician can say. That is sound bite politics at its worse.

7. It's still very early but there are some nicely done ads out already, particularly from MoveOn and the Obama national security. The Planned Parenthood one was stupid, imo. Stupid response to a stupid McCain moment.

Guys, am I missing something here? Another thread perhaps? No mention of Jesse Jackson's "nuts" (I assume this forum is not too puritanical to mention that), no mention of Gramm's "whining" or "mental recession" and no mention of the New Yorker's cartoon of Obama and his wife as muslim and terrorist. None of it of any interest to this thread?

Yeah. I think that they could have done a much better job attacking that. It was almost like they said "We are Planned Parenthood; we need to make an ad out of this," and just did it without really trying to make a good ad out of it.

June Fundraising:

Obama: $52 million
McCain: $22 million


I think there might be some election fatigue going on at FOFC currently.

I'm glad to see Gramm's "whining" getting some play in the press. Obama followed-up by pointing out that Gramm's comment of a "mental recession", combined with McCain earlier admitting that most of his economic proposals for this summer were mainly "psychological" in manner means that neither really understand the pain people are going through this year.

I mean sure, Obama's fairly well-off now, but it wasn't too long ago that he was another guy who paid his bills, paid off his credit card, and pumped his own gas. McCain hasn't done any of this since at least as far back as when he married Cindy.

I have mixed feelings on the New Yorker cartoon. On one hand, I see what they were trying to do, but I'm not sure if you can effectively satirize something (in this case, the right wing smear machine) without portraying them in some way. On the other hand, a bunch of people have pointed out that if the cartoon reinforces some misguided notions about Obama, those people probably weren't going to vote for him anyway.

Dola - we talk a lot about presidential candidates having political experience, but why don't we talk more about candidates having experience in the private (or even non-profit) sector?

You mean like Bush2? As much as I detest politicians and politics in general, the Executive Branch is purely a political environment, all about playing the game with Congress, with the American people and on the world stage. They can bring in outsiders for energy, economics, etc. but the president and his cronies must know how to play to get what they want. And to lead, which includes managing perceptions in saying the right thing at the right time while behind the scenes, managing a constantly shifting coalition. Lincoln, FDR, LBJ and Reagan showed us that. As president, you don't want to be taken advantage of because the worst thing that could happen is a dominate Congress.

To bring it back to your angling point, Reagan was touted to be an "outsider", a "CEO President" if you will but in reality, he and his administration knews how to play the beltway games very well. Bush2 tried to emulate that but failed.

Wasn't that practically the entire basis for Clinton's candidacy? I think we've talked quite enough about that.

Well, I was thinking more of Eisenhower, who viewed himself not as a legislator, but as a manager/executive, who kept the country running and implemented the legislation passed by Congress.

Now I am confused. You are a libertarian. Seems to me you should be very against a strong federal executive and all for a strong Congress. Congress is a slow deliberative body. The President is one person who can actually get things done. A strong President vis a vis Congress means WAY more federal intervention in our lives.

The best situation, of course, is a Congress, President, and Judiciary that are in balance. In that situation, things coming out of the fed tend to take the longest and have some sort of a broad mandate supporting them (and, as an added bonus, are constitutional).

It seems that if one wants the most possible federal involvement in our day to day lives, then one wants a strong president and a neutered Congress and Supreme Court. In that case, anything from wiretaps, to federal involvement in family, tort, and property law, to tax increases can be zipped through without any occasion for anyone to object.

Or, now that I re-read your message, did you actually mean that the best thing for the President is to be a strong political player. Not the best thing for the Country?