__
I’m not savvy enough to judge, but Slate‘s Sasha Issenberg says the Obama re-election campaign’s “top-secret” Project Narwhal “could change this race, and many to come“:
… This year, however, as part of a project code-named Narwhal, Obama’s team is working to link once completely separate repositories of information so that every fact gathered about a voter is available to every arm of the campaign. Such information-sharing would allow the person who crafts a provocative email about contraception to send it only to women with whom canvassers have personally discussed reproductive views or whom data-mining targeters have pinpointed as likely to be friendly to Obama’s views on the issue.
__
From a technological perspective, the 2012 campaign will look to many voters much the same as 2008 did. There will not be a major innovation that seems to herald a new era in electioneering, like 1996’s debut of candidate Web pages or their use in fundraising four years later; like online organizing for campaign events in 2004 or the subsequent emergence of social media as a mass-communication tool in 2008. This year’s looming innovations in campaign mechanics will be imperceptible to the electorate, and the engineers at Obama’s Chicago headquarters racing to complete Narwhal in time for the fall election season may be at work at one of the most important. If successful, Narwhal would fuse the multiple identities of the engaged citizen—the online activist, the offline voter, the donor, the volunteer—into a single, unified political profile…
__
More broadly, Narwhal would bring new efficiency across the campaign’s operations. No longer will canvassers be dispatched to knock on the doors of people who have already volunteered to support Obama. And if a donor has given the maximum $2,500 in permitted contributions, emails will stop hitting him up for money and start asking him to volunteer instead. Those familiar with Narwhal’s development say the completion of such a technical infrastructure would also be a gift to future Democratic candidates who have struggled to organize political data that has been often arbitrarily siloed depending on which software vendor had primacy at a given moment…
What else is on the agenda for the weekend?
Raven
I know it’s late but there was a job thread yesterday and the new Caterpillar plant that is opening here in Athens, Ga is starting to hire. Given the high level of education of many of the folks that posted yesterday there may be something of interest.
For information on these early employment opportunities with Caterpillar, all of which require a four-year college degree and some significant experience, go online to http://www.caterpillar.com/careers/job-opportunities/job-search. Open positions include factory, supply chain and logistics management, engineering management and materials supervision, and other management-level work.
Allan Corr
Why am I always being taken to the mobile site? Please for god’s sake fix this. I haven’t been able to read BJ for over a week now.
HeartlandLiberal
Does the fact that Caterpillar jobs you mention will require a college degree mean that only Democrats, who believe in getting college degrees now, need apply?
As for the Obama campaign news, the campaign must use everything in its power to relentlessly pursue reelection. And that includes accepting PAC money. You cannot unilaterally disarm yourself when the enemy is using the equivalent of nukes. Russ Feingold is welcome to keep discussing how wrong the Citizens United ruling was, but is an IDIOT to suggest that Obama not take advantage of the fundraising and support.
I frankly consider this the most important election in my lifetime, in fact, the most important since at least the first term of FDR and drift into the Depression era. It is frightening to me what horrors lie in wait if the GOP is every given power in this nation again. I am not kidding when I say I have repeatedly researched whether I could afford to just sell everything here and pack up and retire to Germany. Fact is, I can. If the GOP were to gain power, the nightmarish mess they would turn this nation into would be beyond comprehension, the end of the American dream.
P.S. I am now 66. I get my first social security check in about two weeks. Ask me how I feel about the GOP, and at the moment about Steny Hoyer and deficit and austerity hawk idiots like him.
Mustang Bobby
@HeartlandLiberal: Well said.
For those who don’t think this election is important, I have three little words for you: The. Supreme. Court. We’re going to be living with John Roberts and Sam Alito for the next twenty-five years, if not longer, not to mention Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, neither of whom seem to be going anywhere. Healthcare, marriage equality, campaign finance, voting rights, corporate personhood, reproductive rights, immigration will all be shaped by the Court, and if Mitt Romney gets to appoint another Thomas, Scalia, or Roberts, the law and the Constitution will be shaped for the rest of the century and beyond. How’s that shake up your spinal cord?
As for the weekend agenda, the Miami-Dade schools started bring break at the last bell yesterday. I’m off for a week. Yip yah! I have two antique car shows — one today and one next Saturday — but in between, it’s veggie time.
Phylllis
Hubby has to put in some extra hours this weekend and possibly next, so I’m gonna catch up on the dvr queue, do some reading, and putter around the house.
HeartlandLiberal
@Mustang Bobby: The future of SCOTUS, as you point out, it critical. Right now, there is a solid case to be made that at least one justice, Thomas, should be subject to impeachment for financial misreporting. And at least the four you mention have repeatedly stepped out of what is considered the careful neutral role of a SCOTUS justice, and appeared and even spoken at meetings of the far right wing economic and corporate power groups that put them in power, and are trying to cement and complete their take over of this nation, turning it into a corporate oligarchy. That alone is reason to never, ever, ever vote GOP again.
Egg Berry
Re: SCOTUS – i suppose we could root for injuries.
jeffreyw
Some small home repairs, organizing a new all in one computer for Mrs J. Piddling about in a slow shuffle.
Steeplejack (phone)
Testing … the site seems to have stabilized a bit on my Droid.
I’m in Las Vegas; came out Thursday morning for family business and my mother’s birthday. Very nice lunch at Olives at Bellagio yesterday. Other than that a lot of yakking and catching up. Only one (near) meltdown so far, when my wingerish brother who lives here started to bring up his “concerns” about (paraphrasing, but only slightly) Obama running up the national debt on social programs to throw money at undeserving moochers. I started to lay into him about Bush’s trillion-dollar war and tax cuts for the rich and got called for high-sticking. But at least he shut up. And, what a cliché, this is a former government employee who is on Medicaid disability. But he earned all that, of course.
Oh, and I had to sit through The O’Reilly Factor with my mom. Good times. The things we do for love.
Despite that, a good time so far. Weather is perfect, and I think we’re going to get out into the desert today for some hiking and rock-hunting, followed by Mexican food. Things on which we can all agree.
SG
Perhaps I really belong in the 19th century. I suppose the tactical advantages promised by Project Narwhal should be cause for joy but I find the entire concept depressing. Sure, Democrats must deploy every weapon they can muster to defeat the political thugs who invented rat-fucking.
On those terms, data-mining your base is benign. But whatever happened to leadership and the balls to declare honestly what you believe, what you want to do and where you want to take the country? Oh yeah, it went the way of having the integrity to mean what you say and to actually try to fulfill your solemn campaign promises. Narwhal is one message for Jane and another for Joe and a third for Susie the Swing Voter.
I’m just afraid the whole Narwhal thing is a sophisticated way to sell me on the lost hope of government of, by and for the people while still working for the big donor boyz.
As for the importance of this election, I’m more concerned about 2016 — if we make it that far. Who are we grooming to run at a point when the inevitable Democrat-in-White-House fatigue sets in? It sure ain’t Biden. No matter what anyone says, Hillary Clinton will be past her prime. Andrew Cuomo? He’s not his father by a long shot, and hasn’t a chance. Who, then? The zombie Republican Party will once again find a way to resurrect itself and it will be motivated and vicious in 2016.
JPL
@Egg Berry: Maybe Scalia will go hunting with Cheney again.
Dr. Omed
The Obama-or-else-Republicans! argument doesn’t have the effect you intend. That Obama and the Democrats are substantially better than the Republicans doesn’t make them satisfactory or sufficient to avert the catabolic collapse our fading empire faces. Threatening me with Republicans after three plus years of weak tea centrism and continuation of many Bush policies doesn’t make me want to vote for Obama, even though I probably will. It makes me want to walk away from Omelas.*
*Ursula K. LeGuin, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. Google it.
JPL
@SG: Senator Brown and Whitehouse come to mind. Some might vote for Whitehouse just because of his name.
It’s a beautiful day and it will be warm enough to do some much needed clean-up outside.
wvng
Context. Remember when George W Bush entered office? His biggest decision was how to spend down the surplus, and we all know what he did with that. Remember when Barack Obama entered office? The economy was in free fall (last quarter on 2008 had negative 9% GDP), we were in two wars, the auto industry was on the verge of collapse, and there were many more problems of enormous consequence – and on top of that he had an opposition party that had already decided to oppose everything he did or tried to do. I can’t think of anyone who could have handled the many challenges any better, and with anything like President Obama’s grace under pressure.
wvng
@SG: I rather like O’Malley, Maryland’s governor as a contender in 2016. He is smart, progressive, unafraid, charismatic, and a good governor.
amk
@SG:
Obama has shown enough cajones on that front. You need to open up your eyes and mind. Guess that is too much ask ?
kofu
Well now EVERYBODY is doing the database-dossier thing this year!
Maybe it looks worse when it’s the other guys who are doing it?
Koch brothers: secretive billionaires to launch vast database with 2012 in mind
runt
I think this level of “voter surveillance” is creepy. I’m not picking on Obama here, but this technology will be equally available to Republicans. Just imagine the possibilities for manipulation that lies in a message which is tailored to suit you and your prejudices.
It reminds me of those cases where corporations gather info on their customers and tailor ads to each individual, even picking up on signals that indicate women are pregnant. All of a sudden, they start getting ads for baby products in the mail.
debit
@Dr. Omed: Emo progressives who stayed home last cycle were responsible for losing the House. Stay home or walk away, but don’t for a second pretend that you’re doing something noble. And yes, I’ve read the story.
SG
@amk:
My eyes and mind are wide open. Sadly, it took Obama walking back and/or completely reversing himself on too many campaign promises to open my eyes and mind when I was smitten and starry-eyed in 2008. Do I need to enumerate?
Never in 40+ years of voting have I suffered such disillusionment. He really suckered me and made me believe he’d fight for single-payer, he’d close Guantanamo, he’d restore Constitutional norms and end the civil liberties abuses of the Bush administration. And on and on. Let’s face it, Lily Ledbetter, the weak beer of ACA and Dodd-Frank, and the patented negotiate-away-your-strength-before-you-begin compromises are not the stuff of Obama’s stirring campaign rhetoric. It took me my entire life and the Obama presidency to finally become the cynic I am today.
JPL
@SG: Those are all good points and I wish he had recognized that bi-partisanship is impossible with republicans earlier than six months ago.
I also agree with wvng’s comment 13. If a republican had won, we wouldn’t even be close to slogging our way out of this financial mess.
geg6
Well, I see the I didn’t get my pony from Obama so I may or may not vote for him brigade is out early today. Personally, I’d rather read what wingnut trolls have to say than the whining of Dems who are too pure for this world.
As for me, my John is home from the hospital and as grumpy as John Cole after a night of insomnia. Men really are terrible patients.
JPL
@geg6: Glad he’s home.
Splitting Image
@SG:
Obama is hardly to blame for what you believed. None of the Democrats campaigned on single-payer, and Obama took heat during the campaign for supporting the compromise on FISA that allowed warrentless wiretapping and gave immunity to the telecoms that helped the Bush administration’s spying activities.
It’s one thing to not like Obama for doing stuff like that, but if you had been paying attention at all in 2008, you wouldn’t have been that disillusioned by anything he’s done since.
amk
@SG: yeah, yeah, obama didn’t turn around four decades of fuckuppery in
fourtwo years and didn’t get your imaginary ponies either. We get it.SG
@geg6:
Ah, I assume you are referring to me as the whiny Dem who is “too pure for this world.”
Are we defensive, much? Why does totally legitimate criticism of this president’s failures and missteps arouse the kind of nastiness that I’d expect from those wingnut trolls?
I didn’t expect ponies. I expected an honest effort to keep promises that were made repeatedly during the campaign. I expected a Constitutional law professor to understand the limits of executive power and adhere to them as his oath of office demands.
Why does this president deserve a pass on these abuses and failures when just four years ago we were full-throated in our condemnation of the same abuses from Bush? I guess I’m just not that kind of hypocrite.
This isn’t an argument for allowing the Rethugs back into the White House. It’s an argument for holding Obama’s feet to the fire and reminding him what real Democrats stand for.
Baud
@SG:
No. Nothing you said was productive. You said:
Obama never campaigned on single payer, he tried to close Guantanamo and Congress said no, and he ended torture, which is what he said he would do. It’s all make-believe–no different than what the Republicans do.
scav
Bring on the NiClang! Helicopters!
NAACP to call on UN to investigate voter disfranchisement in US
And it’s going to Geneva, not NYC. UN can’t intervene in individual US states, so it’d be an observe mission in any case, but won’t this hit a few conspiracy buttons. My fleet of helicopters would be laughing harder if there weren’t so many actual nutters.
JPL
Let’s not forget this site
http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/
Tyro
I think this level of “voter surveillance” is creepy.
Yes, kind of, but we’re the ones signing up at the campaign offices, sending donations to candidates, and putting our names down as Obama supporters when canvassers come to our doors. A campaign that couldn’t consolidate all of this information is one that I would call “disorganized.”
SG
@Splitting Image:
Oh, I knew Obama wasn’t the knight in shining armor when he completely reversed himself on the FISA bill. And you’re correct, he didn’t campaign on single-payer. I meant the “public option.” I stand corrected. However, when it came to that pesky public option, the fix was in before they changed the drapes in the Oval Office.
And please, the “ponies” metaphor is so tired, so meaningless and so overused. It’s short-hand for not having anything specific to say. Why not enumerate exactly which expectations are so unreasonable? Explain why leaving the crafting of one’s signature health care bill was left to the bumbling and feckless Senate Dems, led by Max (“I Love Insurance”) Baucus — at least until it looked like the whole damn thing was likely to die an ignominious death. Explain why Billy Tauzin was oozing through the White House corridors on a biweekly schedule, making sure the ACA was safe for Big PhRMA?
WereBear
Glad he’s home! And yes, they are. It might help if they weren’t socialized to ignore all emotional signals in their quest to “be a man.” I feel for guys; I really do. They are told they are Masters of the Universe; and then they aren’t. Women are not tormented with such unreasonable expectations.
I have no idea who this fantasy President was who ran in 2008; this Uber-FDR with superpowers who rode a rainbow unicorn to victory and became Dr. Doom once his palm rose up to take The Oath of Office. I voted for someone who managed to realize a sixty year old dream of health care for the entire nation, diverted another Great Depression, saved the US auto industry, and killed Osama Bin Ladin; all while dealing with the most brain-dead and intractable opposition party since the Civil War.
So I’m happy to work for that President again.
BO_Bill
This is a very exciting weekend for me as, for the first time in my adult lifetime, I have my very own internet. As an example, I am currently typing from a table in my kitchen.
Maude
@SG:
He’s worse than Bush. He sold us out.
MikeJ
@Tyro:
To be fair, everybody wanted to in previous campaigns but the tech just wasn’t there. Just getting the campaign’s computers to be able to use data coming out of the state parties and the DNC was a major headache.
It wasn’t a matter of being “disorganized”. Networks haven’t always been ubiquitous, and even when networks exist you have to be very, very, very careful about the way systems interact to prevent confidential data from slopping from system to system. there are a lot of things you need to be able to sit down and think long and hard about before you write one line of code, and most people don’t even know what the questions involved are until they’re thrown into it, at which point they have a few weeks to get everything talking to each other. The main reason why narwhal is working so well is that it is working for an incumbent and the geeks never stopped working since the last campaign.
I worked on this on a vastly smaller scale on Clinton ’92 (no internet in the office, dedicated 56k line back to Little Rock, Xenix system in the closet driving the desktop terms). Back then physically transporting data from the DNC to the other side of the mall up to the F street office was a pain in the ass.
geg6
SG:
You come right out and admit that you had unrealistic expectations regarding Obama and you think I’m being too hard on you? As has been said many times, he has done pretty much what he said he would and what he hasn’t done, he can’t because Congress has to sign off on it and they won’t. No, Obama isn’t the amalgum of Eugene Debs, Martin Luther King, FDR, and Gloria Steinem that we’d all swoon over, but he certainly lines up with practical politicians like Truman and Lincoln, two men who were not and couldn’t be the dreamboat progressive that you seem to have thought Obama was despite all evidence to the contrary. I’m tired of the whining that he isn’t the guy you fantasized he was. And regardless of how disappointed you are, the other options are your worst nightmare. So face reality, suck it up, and realize that it took us forty years and numerous GOP presidents to get us to the fucked up place we are and it will take at least that long under Democrats to get the pendulum to swing back.
danielx
@SG:
If it took you forty years, you’re lucky – it didn’t take me nearly that long. I wasn’t disappointed when Obama didn’t do all those things, with the possible exception of single payer. The rest have to do with the accumulation of power, and Obama – like every other President – has spent his adult life trying to accumulate more power. To expect him to behave any differently than other pols in this respect is to deny human nature. We haven’t had real constitutional norms since Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 and things have been downhill ever since; every President has done things which are technically in violation of the Constitution. All for our own good, of course, and all under the same logic which said we had to destroy the village in order to save it. So I hoped for better from Obama, but I’m not disappointed. I know as well as anybody how irritating it is to ‘settle’, but I invite anyone who’s not interested in emigrating to consider the alternatives if Obama fails to win re-election – particularly if one has XX chromosomes.
As to the rest of the weekend, first it’s time to get cleaned up to attend the services for an old friend’s father, unfortunately. Then gathering branches out of the yard and blowing them off the roof and making chicken burritos for dinner. It’s a gorgeous day and the bulbs are coming up….
SG
@WereBear:
I’m glad you’re happy with President Obama. But why does your happiness negate my disappointment? Why are my expectations fantasy? Because you prefer to describe reasonable expectations for a Democratic president to act more like a Democrat as wanting an “Uber-FDR with superpowers who rode a rainbow unicorn to victory and became Dr. Doom once his palm rose up to take The Oath of Office?”
You are, of course, dealing in silly hyperbole to make a weak point and putting words in my mouth that were never said or implied. C’mon.
Let’s address the terms of ACA: It doesn’t guarantee health care for the “entire nation.” It does nothing to control costs. It cements a predatory insurance racket at the center of our health care “system” — a racket, by the way, that adds exactly “zero” to the actual delivery of health care and, indeed, sucks 20-30% of each healh-care dollar away in profits and overhead.
Obama diverted another Great Depression: Yes, but his appointments of the very people who set the stage for the collapse — Summers, Geithner, Bernanke — were the start of a too-small stimulus and a too-cautious attack on the problem. See: Krugman, Paul.
Obama saved the US auto industry: Yes, he did. This is one of his truly good accomplishments. No argument there.
Obama killed Osama bin Laden: Yes, he did (well, technically it was the SEAL team, but they had their marching orders from the prez). This is a mixed bag. Good, in that the world is rid of bin Laden and justice (and revenge) was served. (I am not against revenge, btw.) Bad, in that it was another imperial-style military operation across sovereign borders. We are too wed to the notion of the ends justifying the means these days. This is a gray area of foreign policy that I am dubious about but I can’t argue with success to date. I would just like to see continued caution.
As for the brain-dead and intractable opposition party, I’m unhappy that Obama dealt with them as much as he did.
Dr. Omed
@debit I told my wife that I just got called an emo prog. I’ll ask her what she thinks when she stops laughing. I voted a straight Dem ticket in 2010; not that it did any good. I simply despise all Republicans. I don’t think I’m noble at all. I think we have two choices; Democrats: fail slower; Republicans: fail faster. If I had the courage of my convictions, I would go for fail faster despite my hatred of what Republicans have done to this country over the past thirty years, because I think apocalypse now instead of later would be better for the world in the long run. And the Republicans would bring it, oh yeah. The trouble is that it would be extremely unpleasant in the short run, and I like my nice little life as a citizen of empire. So don’t call me noble.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Dr. Omed:
What we have is a democracy created with fairly potent minority rights, primarily via a senate with what is called extended debate. Which basically means the minority, if it chooses, can slow down change to a snails pace. And the current minority republicans have done just that. Don’t confuse that with lack of will or good intent by dem presidents and elected congress people. It controls how everything is done. Maybe Obama could have pounded the lectern some more, and called the wingnuts bad names, but it wouldn’t have made progressive lawmaking happen any more than it has. Change is slow in this country, and if you have a problem with that, talk to the founders, if you can reach them.
So your analysis is highly flawed, and conducted with the wrong equations for expectation, mostly. And also reeks of white liberal privilege. But that is just my opinion.
edited to note, you don’t have to be white to suffer from white liberal privilege, as it can be experienced by anyone, of any color. In practical effect.
SG
@geg6:
Where did I admit to unreasonable expectations? On the contrary, I think I’m pretty reasonable.
And please stop attributing a search for “dreamboat progressives” or “whining” to me. I don’t whine. I’ve been completely conversational in my writing and tone. And you know that.
As for reality, I am painfully aware of our unpleasant options. Happily, though, I live in a very, very Blue state. I can use my vote to send a message without the danger of letting the Republicans capture the electoral votes. Consequently, I’ll likely vote Socialist or Green or something that indicates that there are actual progressives still alive in the nation who are not happy with center-right Dems.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
And I would note as well, that which has been noted ad nauseum by many here for the past 3 years. The first two years of which, republicans were irrelevant to legislating, and all of the compromising and politicking was via democrats dealing with other democrats. And not republicans.
jazzgurl
Hey people, life is about disillusionment! Shall I make a list?! Get over yourselves,get real, AND don’t be suckered by the poop being expressed by the Good ole boys club!
mai naem
OMG You know I understand if somebody says they don’t think Obama’s done enough, Obama’s not a good negotiator, Obama’s didn’t do good enough with the health care bill, Obama didn’t close down Gitmo ……I get all that. But for fuck’s sake look at the other side…….do you people seriously want Mitt Romney or Ricky Santorum to be your president. Are you out of your mind?
WereBear
Hell no. You can have your disappointment and make it cocoa and tuck it into bed at night. But if you don’t vote Democratic this November; you are part of the problem.
If you don’t vote; you don’t play. It’s like threatening to boycott a company you never have and never will do business with. We have a two party system in this country, and so we have two choices and one vote.
Spend it wisely and then whine all you want. I do not remember President Obama promising single payer. He tried to close Guantanamo and got ZERO support from the legislative branch. I don’t know what planet you came from; but on this one, we frequently have to settle for less than our fondest dreams. Doesn’t mean we stop dreaming.
But it does mean I prefer to live in Reality; it might not be as nice as my fantasies, but it has the virtue of being something that actually happens.
Jay in Oregon
@runt:
If Romney were to promise that he would start his term as President by ordering the immediate arrest of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the rest for war crimes, maaaaaaybe I’d think about voting for him. Otherwise, there’s no fucking chance in hell of any R getting my vote in 2012. Or ever, if they keep going the way they’re going.
(And, of course this is Romney we’re talking about; I’d just have to wait 5 minutes for him to change his mind.)
All of which is a snarky way of saying that the kind of message tailoring you’re talking about only really works when it’s negative campaigning. Which is all the Rs have this time around because they’ve got jack-shit to run on.
SG
@WereBear:
Let me see if I get this: If I’m not with you, I’m part of the problem. Is that it? I should just shut down any critical thinking and march lock-step with [insert your favorite ideological hero here]. America, love it or leave it? Isn’t that another iteration of that kind of thinking?
And how, once again, is what I’m saying “whining”? This is the all-purpose word trotted out, Gingrich-like, to describe any and every criticism of the Obama presidency, as is the pejorative use of “fantasies” to describe a vision of a better America. Wasn’t it the Republicans who were describing Obama’s campaign rhetoric as “fantasy”?
I’m not demanding agreement with me. I’m just demanding some respectful consideration of my arguments.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Ha Ha. good one. It seems reality has a fiction bias. As current events indicate previous declarations by Mr. Krugman and others need some fact rating as at least ‘partly wrong’.
From the greatest recession since before time, or at least the GD, recovery is under way in just 3 years, considering the starting point. Stimulus has apparently stimulated, with approaching a million jobs the past three months, with all indications of more of same. With the cherry on top of tens of thousands of new manufacturing jobs, thought to be extinct in the American wild.
Obama Stimulus, too small? Not so much, Gracie.
Anton Sirius
@SG:
Goddess forbid a presidential campaign address more than one issue at a time. I’m sure back in your day, stump speeches were never tailored for a specific audience either.
You are a very silly person.
SG
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
Aren’t we forgetting the decimation of public-sector jobs on the state and local levels? I’m sure all those teachers, fire-fighters and police laid off would have appreciated some more stimulus money for the states.
I believe we’re lucky that the Blue-Dogs and various Gangs of Six, Twelve, Umpteen — supported by White House rhetoric on deficits and “reforming” Social Security and Medicare — haven’t gained the traction they’ve needed — yet. Were we to get the level of austerity they have in mind, we wouldn’t be celebrating what recovery we’re enjoying now.
Well, as much as I’ve enjoyed taking on all comers, I must attend to other matters now. Hope you’re all having a nice Saturday morning.
WaterGirl
@geg6: Welcome home, John! Now that the worst is over and he’s home, he probably finally feels safe enough that some of the fears and worries and frustration come sneaking out as crankiness. I take that as a good sign!
Losing Henry, surgery, pain of rehab, and now he probably has a seemingly endless period of recovery ahead of him. I would be cranky, too.
I remember something similar with my dad. After driving 3+ hours to pick him up and take him home from the hospital and stay with him for a week, he was so mad at me because I was late. Like I could control the traffic jam on the highway?? Cranky when I got him home, too, really out of character for him.
I can think of maybe 3 times he was mad at me in my adult life, and I would gladly take any of them if he could still be here. But it was still maddening at the time.
Hang in there. I know it’s been a long couple of weeks for you, too. People forget how tough it is on the other person when a family member is in the hospital.
Dr. Omed
I will stipulate to reeking of privilege, and even of just plain reeking, since I haven’t had a shower this morning. But to be accused of analysis, them’s fighting’ words.
I’m a pessimist, not an analyst. Yes, Obama’s handbasket is a nicer ride than the Republican handbasket, but we’re still goin’ to the same place. Oh, and love those paving stones.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@SG:
No WE are not, and neither has Obama
There would be more of this, but the problem is not Obama and dems, these people are the problem blocking more fed help to keep state jobs.
Focus
negative 1
@SG: So… where exactly in our system of government does budget approval lie? If you said ‘Congress’ you win.
“For some reason the president did what he thought he could possibly get done, rather than what I said to teh TV and get nothing done.” Hmmm. This seems to be frustrating you.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Dr. Omed:
Not really, but the snails pace of changing directions sure makes it seem that way. Take a shower, and it will all become clear . sorta. :-)
kerFuFFler
Just thought I would share this wonderful anecdote about Obama as a young man:
“-You’ll have to pay a 103 dollar surcharge if you want to bring both those suitcases to Norway, the man behind the counter said.
Mary had no money. Her new husband had traveled ahead of her to Norway, and she had no one else to call.
-I was completely desperate and tried to think which of my things I could manage without. But I had already made such a careful selection of my most prized possessions, says Mary.
Although she explained the situation to the man behind the counter, he showed no signs of mercy.
-I started to cry, tears were pouring down my face and I had no idea what to do. Then I heard a gentle and friendly voice behind me saying, That’s OK, I’ll pay for her.
Mary turned around to see a tall man whom she had never seen before.
-He had a gentle and kind voice that was still firm and decisive. The first thing I thought was, Who is this man?
Although this happened 20 years ago, Mary still remembers the authority that radiated from the man.
-He was nicely dressed, fashionably dressed with brown leather shoes, a cotton shirt open at the throat and khaki pants, says Mary.
She was thrilled to be able to bring both her suitcases to Norway and assured the stranger that he would get his money back. The man wrote his name and address on a piece of paper that he gave to Mary. She thanked him repeatedly. When she finally walked off towards the security checkpoint, he waved goodbye to her.
The piece of paper said ‘Barack Obama’ and his address in Kansas, which is the state where his mother comes from. Mary carried the slip of paper around in her wallet for years, before it was thrown out.
-He was my knight in shining armor, says Mary, smiling.
She paid the 103 dollars back to Obama the day after she arrived in Norway. At that time he had just finished his job as a poorly paid community worker* in Chicago, and had started his law studies at prestigious Harvard university.”
Obama is a wonderful, trusting and generous man. Share this story and keep it in mind when the GOP starts trying to smear him during the election. What disgusting excuses for human beings they are trying to fling their poo at such a kind, exemplary person.
SG
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
Man, I said I was leaving, but you just keep drawing me back in.
The stimulus was passed before the Republicans won the House and gained seats in the Senate. My belief is that Obama, under the banner of some ridiculous idea of post-partisanship or some such wishful thinking, squandered his first two years. He had a powerful mandate for change. The country was sick of the Republicans and all their works; the Thugs were totally discredited. By not using the power he had — of oration from the bully pulpit, of executive orders, of progressive cabinet appointments, of outright arm-twisting and ruthless management of his fractious caucus — Obama gave the Republicans an opening they didn’t deserve and they took swift advantage of it.
It was maddening to watch while it was happening and it’s no better to contemplate now.
And please, spare me the drill: “Ponies, fantasies, you’re silly, unrealistic and objectively pro-Rethug, blah-blah-blah.” I take those sentiments as a given.
Kristine
Just brought the pups home from the vet. King had his semiannual exam–he’s 11 y.o. this month, which makes him a geriatric pupster–and is still looking good. Fingers crossed I have him for a few more years. According to the chart at the vet’s, his age/weight puts him at about 86 y.o. in human years. He does sleep more than he ever did, and he isn’t as jumpy at the vet’s as he used to be. But he still plays with Gaby, and his appetite is great, and there are no signs of anything going wrong. He’s getting injections for arthritis, and they seem to be helping. He’s a good puppy.
Next up, grocery shopping. Then side job work and pulling together 2011 tax stuff for the tax guy. Cookie baking will fit in there somewhere. The excitement, it never ends.
boss bitch
@SG:
You mean a system that doesn’t assume all Democrats care about the same thing or have the same priorities? A system where Jim X would get e-mails/lit about what Obama has done for environment and Jane Y gets an e-mail about reproductive rights?
That flip flopping – no conviction stuff you’re talking about? that’s what Republicans do. Obama is consistent and if a bill is not all he wants, he tells us. I can’t think of any Democrat who changes their opinion in the way you wrote.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@SG:
You made a statement on loss of state level jobs, attempting to side step your earlier statement that the stimulus was too small. Which was false, as was the suggestion Obama wasn’t doing anything about the state level jobs that were being lost. I gave you factual evidence you were wrong about that as well, and you come back with lame proclamations of how Obama has failed you. You are entitled to think any silly thing you want, but not to mold the facts in a misleading way to support your disappointment.
And the stimulus bill needed one republican to get passed, and that was Olympia Snowe, and her dem side kick Ben Nelson. But the point of my commentary was that claims about an inadequate stimulus, despite how it went down, is not supported by current reality.
What I think is that you are afflicted by that same white liberal privilege, that prevents you from judging Obama in a rational way within the system he must operate in, and fairly judged as compared to any past president, all of which have been white, btw. Why is that? You seem to be saying he is weak and wimpish, and you really don’t want to know what I think of that, if that is what you are saying.
Stay, go, no one cares, but if you stay, the beatings will continue until morale improves. and you are provided the facts, whether you want them or not.
kay
They’re really ramping up in Ohio. They have organizer training this weekend, and our county organizer arrives Monday.
Just for comparison, the Kerry campaign didn’t put anyone on the ground in the rural counties until late June.
Sherrod will have his campaign in 66 of 88 counties, so the two will overlap.
I think it will be twice as big as ’08.
If you’re interested in organizing itself, even apart from this candidate or this campaign, and I am, it’s pretty exciting to watch it take off.
The Obama campaign will do voter reg. Kerry outsourced that, which was both inefficient and ineffective, because it was 2 groups doing 2 contacts, and a mess.
SG
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
1. Side-stepping? No, I wasn’t.
2. Stimulus too small is “false”? You are entitled to your own opinions, as am I, but you are not entitled to your own facts. We can get into a slanging match about the porridge being too hot, too cold or just right, but it’s still opinion. The stimulus, as it was, was certainly a good thing. Why is more of a good thing a bad thing?
3. “White liberal privilege preventing me from judging Obama in a rational way”? First of all, you don’t know me, my circumstances or anything else that could lead you to make that kind of statement beyond a desire to demonstrate sheer pugnaciousness. Beyond that, if that isn’t the bigotry of low expectations, I don’t know what is. I’m up front in crediting the president with his successes and bemoaning his failures. I am not interested in hagiography. That’s the province of Republicans, wingnuts and Kool-aid drinkers.
4. Whose morale are you talking about? Mine is fine. How’s yours?
Frankensteinbeck
@SG:
Your problem is that you are simply, flatly wrong.
A) The ACA does a huge amount to control costs. The mandate and the compensation to allow everyone to buy insurance is the tiniest part of a two thousand page bill that is mostly new regulations on the industry and whole new systems to remove the problems that were inflating health care costs and screwing over recipients.
B) The size of the stimulus was determined by what could be passed through the Blue Dogs in congress, not some cabal of bankers in Obama’s administration. Note that it was just barely small enough to pass. Also note that as we’ve discussed several times lately, it WORKED. Bigger might have worked better, but we got one so big congress was just barely willing to pass it. There is no and has never been a reason to believe Obama could have delivered a bigger stimulus.
C) ‘Negotiate away your strength’ is ridiculous way to describe a negotiating method that has been proven, flat out and empirically, to work. NO PRESIDENT, no matter how strong their position, has achieved the health care expansion OBama did in one hundred years of trying. Look at his negotiations with the Tea Party congress, and how his ‘compromises’ again and again turned out to screw them completely.
D) The narrative that he’s continuing Bush abuses is an imaginary, counterfactual invention sold to you by dishonest muckrakers who don’t want you to know context. Obama has not continued the Bush abuses. He uses national security privilege under the same standards presidents always have, not Bush’s arrogant expansions. His use of domestic intelligence systems – like wiretapping – scrupulously follows the law, where Bush’s did not. This ‘assassination’ bullshit meme pretends that what he’s doing is new, when it’s long since a settled legal issue. It ALL pretends that he’s doing something abusive when he’s doing exactly what presidents have done since time out of mind. Obama’s record on civil liberties is excellent. Hell, he’s tried twenty different gyrations, all while ultra-liberals screamed, to get the captives in Guantanamo SOME kind of trial while congress countered everything with near-unanimous veto-proof majorities.
E) That austerity you’re so worried about, cutting the social safety net? You know why it hasn’t happened? Because Obama has PERSONALLY, time and time again, refused to do it when the GOP demanded it with threats to destroy the government. He’s given major speeches about how the way to beat the deficit is through investment and protecting the average citizen, not cutting. He is the spokesman and defender you want, and you haven’t been listening.
F) ‘Military style hit across sovereign borders’. Say what? Pakistan’s official stance is and has been ‘come get him’. The closest you can get to an argument against that is their government is ludicrously corrupt and fights against itself on most issues. Yemen’s stance on AaA? ‘Come and get him’. They wanted him dead or alive, mostly dead, and he was in an area controlled by rebels. We’re not engaging in ‘military style hits across sovereign borders’, because those nations either have no government or are happy to let us do what they can’t.
In summation, there are no abuses and damned few failures. Your disappointment is based on your judging a fantasy version of his actions rather than his real actions. I will admit that you’re getting your information from people who are either deliberately deceiving you or don’t know what they’re talking about, so that’s understandable.
JGabriel
Sasha Issenberg @ Slate:
I think we (or at least Sasha) need to temper our expectations here. I can’t believe no one else has pointed this out yet, but when I hear the words engineers and racing to complete in the same sentence, the first word that comes to mind is: BUGS.
If the campaign really is racing to complete this — rather than proceeding on schedule — then there are likely to be bugs galore in the final product. Doesn’t mean it won’t be useful anyway, but don’t expect a flawless rollout either.
.
Frankensteinbeck
As for the actual topic at hand, this is why CU is not the strength Republicans hoped it would be. A traditional campaign is tightly focused, integrated, and organized. SuperPACs, by design, are not.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@SG:
the readers can judge the sidestepping issue
Once it was “opinion”, now we have actual real time evidence it wasn’t too small.
All we have is what we write on these pages, yours is pretty standard fair for those afflicted with the white lib privilege bug. we have discussed it many times here.
Are you aware that the above statement comes straight out of republican 101 in responding to dems and liberals stating that racism is still a problem in this country? Apparently not, but keep talking, as the truth will set you free, maybe.
All I can say is wow to this tidbit of cog dissonance.
cmorenc
@Mustang Bobby:
First, I agree completely about the crucial implications of who makes the next one to four Supreme Court nominations.
Second, one potential bright note here is that age is finally beginning to creep up on Anton Scalia, who is (as of tomorrow 3/12/12) 76 years old. The oldest justices at age of retirement from SCOTUS so far have been Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Paul Stevens, both of whom were 90 when they stepped down. The average vacancy (retirement) rate on the court is about one per presidential term. The downside with Scalia, of course, is that doubtless he will try to hold off retirement until there is a GOP President in office to appoint his replacement.
Bruce S
The EastBay MoveOn council has begun a petition that goes a step beyond the “Dump DeMarco” sentiments – which are all good – to focus on the actual plan that Bush-appointee DeMarco is cooking up to reward the financial speculators, hedge funds, etc. with Fannie and Freddie foreclosed properties at a cut rate, so the same folks who screwed us can make even more money off the back-end of their crimes. Check it out and sign on – even if you’ve signed the other Dump DeMarco petitions, this one goes to the heart of what he’s cooking up while refusing principal reductions to struggling homeowners:
http://eastbaymoveon.blogspot.com/
JGabriel
@Egg Berry:
I’m rooting for retirement-inducing illnesses, re: Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts.
.
JGabriel
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
We have real time evidence that the economy is improving, General. A lot of people think it could have been improving sooner and faster with a larger stimulus, e.g., Stieglitz, Krugman, Roubini, et. al.
There are disagreements over what was politically feasible, and maybe the administration is right when they say the stimulus we got was the best possible given the political constraints. But I think even the administration implicitly agrees that a larger stimulus would have been better when they argue that no one knew at the time how big the economic hole was.
.
Bruce S
Thanks, JGabriel, for injecting a note of sanity into the nonsensical penchant for sychophancy and “being right” about the perfidy of “firebaggers” like Paul Krugman even when it makes the claimant look like a total fucking idiot.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@JGabriel:
So now you all are going to extra parse reality within a 3 year time frame that it could have worked quicker, only if they listened to Krugman, et al. That is some pretty thin ice to be skating on. After the worst recession since the GD. Is Krugman and his followers, too high on the liberal icon mountain to have even a small slice of humble pie?
the truth is likely that Obama added on smaller pieces of stimulus in other bills, and that more was likely wrong than just throwing stim dollars at the problem, and that consumer confidence and confidence in general has a role to play. But what do I know, as but a common Obot blog commenter with a fake name. Full of unicorn visions and the like.
Mnemosyne
@SG:
Why are we supposed to respectfully consider the arguments of someone who has no clue what he’s talking about and is spouting idiotic talking points?
Educate yourself. Learn some facts. You keep making major factual mistakes and then wondering why you’re not getting any respect for your arguments.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Bruce S:
I haven’t mentioned ‘firebaggers’ in this thread, relating to Krugman or anyone else. You did though.
edit – and LOL, what do you know about “sanity”?
Mnemosyne
@JGabriel:
I think it’s fair to say that the stimulus should have been larger, but I think people like Krugman vastly overestimate what was politically possible at that point.
The thing that bugs me about the “too small” argument is that it seems to buy into the right-wing argument that the stimulus didn’t do anything, when the facts show that it worked. We can argue that a larger one would have helped more, or more quickly, but please don’t buy into the claims that the stimulus didn’t do anything to help, because they’re lies.
Frankensteinbeck
@JGabriel:
I agree with you completely. The truth is quite nuanced.
@Bruce S:
I wish to defend Stuck in this case, in that he’s specifically arguing against people who either directly or through implication claim that the stimulus was a failure because it wasn’t big enough. This is universally used as an argument that Obama failed by not demanding a bigger stimulus, the major point of contention. Thus, arguing that it did basically work is an important leg in the debate, regardless of how vehement he gets about it.
Opposition to Krugman is more complicated. I know I (and I think most of his ‘detractors’ here) absolutely accept that he’s a brilliant economist. Not always right – his double dip didn’t happen, for example – but that’s because economics is such a murky and complex issue, not because he isn’t knowledgeable. Our objection is that the political interpretations he packs with his economics are not expert insight, and are swallowed wholesale by a lot of people like SG above.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
More lolz. I don’t like to toot my own horn on predictions made, but I actually did predict what is happening now with the economy months ago, much to the chagrin of Krugman acolytes. So idiot? maybe. But not this time.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Krugman has been predicting for 3 years not only was the stimulus too small, but that we were pretty much doomed because of it. He was wrong about the doom, as it appears now. FLAT FUCKING WRONG ABOUT THAT. and that is the point I am making.
nellcote
@JGabriel:
.
Considering how much worse it was (3X!)than the numbers they were working with, I’ve always wondered if the Bush people intentionally low balled the problem.
Frankensteinbeck
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
True, his double dip never happened, but it was certainly a real possibility. Most of his predictions of doom have been based on his false political interpretation that austerity is about to happen, when it never did. His political insight is rather hysterical, as in ‘Obama’s going to sell us all out, I know it!’
Schlemizel
I just learned that Peter Bergman has died of complications from leukemia. A lot of humor has left this Earth, we’ll have to make do with what he left behind.
http://firesigntheatre.com/peterbergman/index.html
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Frankensteinbeck:
agreed
phoebes-in-santa fe
@SG: I was half-way listening to MSNBC the other evening when all of a sudden I perked up and asked myself, “Who IS that talking, he sounds so smart!”
Well, I knew it wasn’t Obama, but it was MD’s govenor Martin O’Malley! Wow! My son, who’s a Democratic operative and knows all the players, told me O’Malley’s REALLY great. So:
Obama2012
O’Malley2016
O’Malley2020
bemused senior
I’ll believe in Project Narwhal when I stop getting double emails from the Obama for America organization.
Bruce S
Stuck – you’re obviously an economic genius.
Don’t embarrass yourself with this shit…the conceit that the stimulus was “enough” rather than a political compromise that prolonged recession is just too fucking stupid to even debate with you. Jared Bernstein, Reich and Krugman should retire and give it up to your predictive powers…perhaps even a Nobel Prize is in order.
Bruce S
The difference between a “double dip” and a long drawn out pig-fuck of stagnant “recovery” is purely academic. We needed more stimulus to move the recovery forward in a way that truly responded to the pain on the ground felt be real people. That’s a fucking fact. Your sycophancy and self-aggrandizement at expense of reality is pathetic. Krugman isn’t a political advisor to the President. His task is to deal in critical analysis, “wake up calls” and, frankly, as a combination of expert and polemicist, he’s on solid ground pushing a bit of pessimism about what’s being proposed in order to move the conversation to the highest possible ground. Without such as Krugman we’re “stuck” with a bunch of ass-kissers who will believe anything perceived as politically expedient. Fuck that and fuck you.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Bruce S:
No, the truth is there was a lot more stimulus money’s put forth into law in various forms, that likely made the recession short as possible, likely even surpassing Krugman’s must be numbers in the original stim bill. As well as Obama continuing the Bush tax cuts, keeping that money in the economy as stimulus. And Krugman’s simplistic obsession with the original stim bill and him being right above all else, and fapping about doom and gloom cause people weren’t acting on his rantings, is what is stupid.
And his dismissal of any other factor structural or otherwise being in play was equally stupid, if not pathological. As is your worship for people like him. And the fact that a naif like me did predict what we have, is not a statement of my genius, it is a statement of Krugman’s arrogance and polemic wanking. That is strangely similar to your pompous blathering on this thread, that we have come to expect on this blog.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Bruce S:
The only people kissing ass on this thread is you bug brane. For some guy sitting in an ivory tower blustering how he is the only one who has the answers. But I still do like Krugman, but some one needs to tell him he is full of shit when compromised by partisan politics.
Lojasmo
@SG:
1) Obama never even hinted at single payer
2) Obama ordered the closing of gitmo, but was denied funding to do it.
3) fuck yourself