Teaser from Charlie Pierce’s latest book report:
One of the pleasant byproducts of Dan Balz’s new book about the 2012 campaign is that, unless they’re all on mushrooms, the Democrats who had even the faintest stirrings of a man-crush on Chris Christie will now understand quite clearly what the guy is about. He’s got an ego bigger than his waistline, and the only time he remotely cares about any progressive policy is when half his state is being blown out to sea.
Ultimately, Christie was given the keynote addres sat the 2012 GOP convention – a coveted speaking slot reserved for rising stars. There, his “big” personality came out in a big way: when organizers told Christie that they were scrapping a three-minute introduction video before his speech due to time constraints, the governor insisted they reconsider. When they pushed back, according to Balz, Christie told a member of the production team “to ask the director if he had ever heard anyone say ‘f***’ on live television, because that’s what he was about to do if the video didn’t run.” After another sharp exchange, Christie said he wouldn’t deliver the speech if the video didn’t run. Romney’s convention team leader, Russ Schriefer, intervened, instructing the director to play the video…
Play my masturbatory video or, quite literally, I will fuck up your convention. I wish they’d called his bluff. His speech was a catastrophe anyway. The odd “fuck” thrown in there couldn’t have hurt. But I was more intrigued by the collection of human offal that was encouraging the Jersey Barrier to run…
More at the link, to send a chill down your spine in respite against the heat of the day.
Apart from That Is Not Dead Which Can Eternal Lie, and other GOP favorites, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
bill d
Play my video or I’ll talk to an empty chair.
Suffern ACE
Picking up my neighbor’s photos from my printer. They probably didn’t mean to send them there. Next up, setting a password for my printer.
burnspbesq
It continues to astound that anyone could believe Pierce has anything useful to say.
dollared
@burnspbesq: That’s an amazingly insightful contribution. Please, tell us more. Pretty please?
The Other Chuck
@burnspbesq: Your utterances, on the other hand, ever and always meet everyone’s expectations of uselessness, surprising no one.
PsiFighter37
Fuck all those asshole Democrats who endorsed Christie this year, too. Someone needs to remind him that nothing would make that blimp of a man happier than to crush every single union in the state.
Johnny Coelacanth
@burnspbesq: I suppose you are a much wittier and more entertaining writer than Charlie Pierce. I do wish you would share more of that sterling wit with us, instead of whatever it is you’re doing now.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@burnspbesq:
I read or at least scan everything Pierce posts. His takedowns of David Brooks are wonderful. And he regularly digs into the goings-on in state governments. I don’t find that information reported or excerpted in a timely manner in any other national blog. Do you?
MattF
@burnspbesq: Ah, yer just trolling. I agree that Pierce isn’t a great thinker. But I strongly suspect that Rick Santorum really is a colossal dick.
Amir Khalid
Governor Harkonnen only played nice with Obama because he knew the president was tight with Bruce Springsteen; and he saw an opportunity for his own relationship with Bruce to go from this to this.
And yeah, the RNC should have called the fat fool’s bluff. He’d have folded for sure.
Haydnseek
@burnspbesq: We probably have different definitions of the word “useful.” I find Pierce dead-on accurate, as well as hilarious. His concern with the commonwealth, in it’s largest sense, adds depth and context. I find that quite useful. YMMV.
gogol's wife
I read People while on the treadmill, and I’ve been learning about what a great guy Christie is. He’s so brave and honest and truthful and has a wonderful wife and four kids. The oldest son is at Princeton and looks just like dad. As I said the other day, God grant I’m not around when the son runs for president. And Christie promises that when he loses tons of weight thanks to his lap band, he’s not going to be judgmental with fat people. I’m sure they’ll be so grateful.
All that said, I’m not too worried about Christie. But then, I was worried about Palin in 2008, so I may not be terribly insightful about these things.
Haydnseek
@gogol’s wife: Christie would tell you that you’re doing it wrong. For him, the people are the treadmill.
Hal
it’s unfortunate Christie doesn’t have an apparently strong Dem contender for Governor. Someone who could highlight his actual record and make him answer to that record on a regular basis, even if he will still win.
Ask him how he can cut 6 million from planned parenthood because the state can’t afford it, but can spend 12 million extra on a special election 10 days before the regular election so that he gets the stage all to himself. Or how he had to take a helicopter to his child’s baseball game, and then needed to take a limo the rest of the way.
Christie is ripe with follies but everyone is so busy praising his boldness! Look at the way he took down the Vet who dared question him, or that woman who wanted to know why someone who was sending his kids to private school was so keen on cutting public school money. He’s brave! Strong willed! He’ll make a great President implementing all the policies Mitt Romney couldn’t convince the country to go along with.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Working on a mod for Morrowind. The game is 11 years old and the modding community for it is still alive and well. Thanks again to the BJer who turned me on to this great game. Creating a mod is complicated, sometimes frustrating, it’s also a hell of a lot of fun to see something that you created in the game’s world.
PeakVT
This post on Christie was linked to last weekend, but it’s worth mentioning a second time.
OzarkHillbilly
Chris Christie sucks donky d!ck. You can tell by his waist line. Donkey seamen is very fattening.
quannlace
The F-bomb would have been totally appropriate, considering the minor fuck up that was that whole convention.
Mrs. Romney trying to ‘appeal’ to the woman’s vote. That whole video that was supposed to ‘introduce America to the real Romney’ that was scheduled too early for network coverage. And who was the supposed outreach to the ‘Latino vote.’ Cruz? Rubio? And of course, giving Eastwood
carte blanche to wander down whatever road of crazy he wanted.
hilzoy
A lot of politicians are completely fake. When a politician acts like an actual human being, a lot of people are pleasantly surprised, so much so that they forget that a lot of actual human beings are, in fact, jerks. (My theory of Christie’s popularity with people who should know better.)
Comrade Scrutinizer
@burnspbesq: I would like more information. Please send me a copy of your brochure.
NickT
@OzarkHillbilly:
Donkey seamen always have trouble handling the lines and raising the sail.
Violet
You’ll hear very little criticism of Christie about this incident from the Village. Instead you’ll hear that it shows he knows his own value, is tough, and won’t take no for an answer. It’ll end up being part of his mythology–he told those loser Romney folks where they could go because he knew he needed to manage his own brand–they weren’t going to do it for him.
Keith G
Soooo, did Governor Christy succeed in getting the video played?
? Martin
See, the problem here is that, like politicians, too many gun owners are just assholes.
Exhibit A:
Countless ways to celebrate, but I think I’ll fire a gun toward my great granddaughters bedroom.
Exhibit B:
You want to protest? Fine. You want to own a gun? Fine. But you want to bring your AR-15 to protest a person who was shot in the head? That’s just being an asshole.
Maybe a federal ban on assholes owning guns. Can we do that one?
NickT
@burnspbesq:
I’d say that was a useful contribution.
NickT
@Keith G:
Keith G
@NickT: Exactly!
That was my point.
Steeplejack
@Keith G:
Why, yes, he did.
Litlebritdifrnt
You know the fact that these people couldn’t run a campaign nor a convention worth a damn just convinces me that we should never, ever, have put them in charge of running the fucking country.
Davis X. Machina
Is that ‘masturbatory video’ masturbatory in the sense that one would masturbate to it, or in the sense that it is of Gov. Christie masturbating.
I can’t stand ambiguity.
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
I’m feeling unaccountably perky this evening. My air conditioning is out (no relief until Monday at the earliest), and I was worrying about sweltering today, since the projected high was 94° here in NoVa. But we caught a break and it went up only to 89°. Humidity was relatively low (60%), and there was a breath of a breeze, so I came through surprisingly well. And I just finished a dirty martini to celebrate. Now thinking about what would be good for dinner.
Looks like a quiet evening with the housecat, although I have to go out at 11:00 to give a friend a ride home from work.
Keith G
@Litlebritdifrnt: We Democrats have had our share of fucked up conventions and we have run some really stupid campaigns – as in Al Gore & John Kerry, to name but two.
sparrow
@Amir Khalid: LOLOLOLOL. Baron Harkonnen…. can we please get that going as an official nickname…
Patricia Kayden
Did they really believe he’d drop the “f” bomb during a Repub convention? Really? Doubt it. They should have called his bluff. He would have damaged his brand had he cussed during his speech way more than embarrass his party.
scav
@? Martin: Exhibit A). Well, being all responsible gun owner and “careful” enough to shoot indoors would presumably up the odds of the someone taken out sharing your genes and environment. So I guess a plus from an evolutionary viewpoint — long time to wait though.
Steeplejack
@? Martin:
From another story linked at that page:
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
You really shouldn’t forget your to take your meds, even for one day.
Not that we can really tell that much difference but it can’t be all that healthy judging by this example.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Keith G:
True, I thought nominating Kerry was the most fucked up thing the dems could ever do in the history of the universe, he was probably the most unlikeable candidate I have ever seen. Even I was rooting for Bush for that one.
Violet
@? Martin: WTF on that second photo? The guy looks like he’s waiting by the dumpster behind the Arby’s for someone to get off work. Where in the world is he?
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Really? After the disastrous first four years?
Bob
The Outlaw Jersey Whale.
tbogg.firedoglake.com/2012/08/28/the-outlaw-jersey-whale/
Ultraviolet Thunder
what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Walkies with wife and Doglius. Then either some video entertainments or hobby work in the shop. I’m voting for a video. It’s a better excuse to gorge on popcorn.
NickT
@sparrow:
Jabba Harkonnen.
maya
Apparently Guvner Gweed picked up a thing or two from watching The Jersey Shore after all. Picking Snooki as his running mate would make him invincible.
different-church-lady
DCL, +2
(no, there’s no actual comment — I just never get to play the +X game, so I thought I’d carpe diem right now.)
Anne Laurie
@burnspbesq: Weak. You really want people to dislike you, try something like “Rescue pets are for idiots, because nobody with any intelligence would waste their time with other peoples’ discards.”
(For the irony-impaired: I have both rescue dogs and rescue cats, and love them dearly, even the ones who don’t return my feelings.)
Davis X. Machina
@Litlebritdifrnt:
John Kerry, Terrible Candidate:
We must re-define ‘terrible candidate’ to mean ‘candidate I didn’t like’
Steeplejack
@Davis X. Machina:
And they still had to steal the election in Ohio.
gogol's wife
@Davis X. Machina:
I prayed fervently on my knees every night for Kerry to win.
esc
I’m told the NJ GOP is spending real money in districts they never have before to take advantage of how weak Buono is at the top of the ticket. They couldn’t turn the state into Ohio or anything, but it’s another shit lining to the whole situation.
JPL
@Davis X. Machina: Kerry did drink green tea and for some reason, that was more important to MSM than the Iraq war lies.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Davis X. Machina:
Yeah so? I just think Kerry was an awful candidate, he was unlikeable to the nth degree, non of the dems in my circle could stand him, most of them held their noses in order to vote for him (not that it mattered in my district anyway) but no one was willing to get out and work for him. He was an entitled privileged prick, who thought it was his turn. The whole “I am John Kerry and I am reporting for duty” made me want to puke. In fact the entire Dem convention that year was an example of suckitude. I guess that means that both sides do it.
Turgidson
@Davis X. Machina:
Aside from the unfortunate “I voted for it before I voted against it” incident and the slow response to the Swift Boat Assholes for Mendacity, which probably cost him a signficant number of votes, I didn’t think Kerry’s performance was bad at all. A bit bland and safe, yeah, probably. But I thought he did fine, really. And he was a top notch debater (not that taking the Decider down in a debate was necessariy rocket surgery).
I look at who else ran and don’t think anyone else would have done better. Much as I’d like to think Dean’s blunt rejection of all things Bush and Iraq would have won the day, I doubt it. The idea of Wes Clark seemed formidable. Unfortunately we were stuck with the real Wes Clark, who was a prototype for the “late entry, followed by quick faceplant” model that Fred Thompson and Rick Perry improved upon after him.
Turgidson
@Turgidson:
Oh yeah, I forgot the “reporting for duty” fail. That was bad. No wonder Kerry got no bounce out of the convention.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Turgidson: IMHO Howard Dean was the better of the candidates, but the Kerry machine beat him down.
Davis X. Machina
@Litlebritdifrnt: You get 15% of voters who ‘somewhat approve’ of the other candidate to vote for you, you can’t be doing it all wrong.
I remember when this happened to Pauline Kael on the Upper West side, re Nixon.
Davis X. Machina
@Turgidson: No bounce in Gallup. The issue is complicated.
eemom
@Litlebritdifrnt:
“I thought nominating Kerry was the most fucked up thing the dems could ever do in the history of the universe”
I’m just hoping it’s not gonna be outdone by the mind-blowing fuck upery of nominating McAuliffe here in VA this year.
As for Christie, I was at the Jersey shore last weekend. The rebuilding that’s been done, at least where we were (Ocean Grove, next to Asbury Park) was very impressive considering how bad the devastation was not so long ago. Dunno how much credit he deserves for that. Regardless, he’s an asshole.
PurpleGirl
@Hal:
…then needed to take a limo the rest of the way.
IIRC, the limo ride was something like 300 yards (900 feet) from where the helicopter landed and the stands. That really isn’t all that long a distance, yet he couldn’t walk it.
(I’m a large person, not as large though, and that defines for me a fat fu*k.)
SiubhanDuinne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I would work for and vote for Hillary or just about any other Dem candidate in 2016, but I could get very enthusiastic about Howard Dean. Liked him in 2004, like him even more now. Is there the remotest chance he’ll run, do you think?
Litlebritdifrnt
@SiubhanDuinne:
Nope, I think he has accepted the fact that Hillary is going to be the nominee and will give in to that. I am not saying that I will not do everything in my power to make sure that Hillary is elected in 2016 but I really wish she would say “I want to run but I think Howard Dean is the best candidate”. A girl can dream. There could be nothing better than a doctor to usher in Obamacare.
Linda
@Hal: You damn The Great One with faint praise. He also has no money for a trans-Hudson Rail tunnel between NY and NJ, –or for public pensions– but about $1 billion in loans, tax breaks, and infrastructure supports for Xanadu, or whatever they are calling that boondoggle, and cash to hire halfway houses that let prisoners loose. Seriously, I think he would sell his mamma for a quarter and give back change.
SiubhanDuinne
@Litlebritdifrnt: Agree with it all (except I didn’t detest Kerry as much as you did). Yes, it would be fantastic to have an M.D. as the executive to kick-start Obamacare in 3+ years. He’d be just shy of his 68th birthday on election day 2016, no spring chicken but not all that creaky either. He thinks strategically, he’s compassionate, he’s smart, he’s funny. Yes, I see. It’ll never happen.
Keith G
@Turgidson:
These were epic failures because 1) they came at the time the the voters who could be reached were making a first judgement. 2) Twelve years earlier, the Clinton campaign wrote the book on how to deal with an anticipated smear attack. This was not an unknown skill set. And Kerry only fucking went wind surfing. I desperately wanted him to be elected, but he never showed me he wanted the office, much less run a campaign to deserve it.
Going back to Christy…(borrowing from Lincoln), “He fights.”
I like Christy’s chances to be nominated and I think he is the Republican with the best chance of taking the oath because of his anti matter powered charisma/persona. Right or wrong folks take notice of those who fight.and who get their way (I think it’s a pro survival / evolutionary based unconscious thing).
Joel
Dicking over the RNC is point Christie in my book.
I mean, you don’t need to convince me that he’s an asshole.
rikyrah
@bill d:
LOL
Botsplainer
OT, but this was just plain funny for everybody who despises Larry Klansman.
examiner.com/article/larry-klayman-is-leading-the-second-american-revolution
Larry’s most recent ineptness was to use his Klavern in Ocala to fake indict the prosecutor from the Zimmerman trial. Think “cosplay” but with less sex and a lot more delusion.
Jay
Oh, I dunno…
Charles Pierce is an amazing writer, Romney’s a shithead, and Christie’s recent pop-off on the DOMA decision serves as yet another reminder that the governor is a prick most of the time (love how he always throws in the “marriage is thousands of years old, so changing it is a SERIOUS thing that we should leave up to the voters” argument. Hey pal: marriage used to be between “one white man and one white woman.” Would you have supported putting THAT to a vote at the time?), but it should be evident to all by now that Christie just hated Romney, which is great. That some Romney flack had to step in on the video shows the Rombots knew their guy Mittshitt had a REAL popularity problem. I mean, say Christie doesn’t get his way. He bails on the convention speech and goes back to Jersey the next day to give a scathing speech on why he’s leaving the GOP. He’d mention people like Boehner by name, as he later would anyway re Sandy. He becomes a Democrat and appoints someone like Bill Bradley as a Senate placeholder when Lautenberg dies. He declines to run for Governor again and hands off to Cory Booker, who cruises and is on the short list to help a Clinton or O’Malley hold together the Obama coalition in ’16, while Christie holds a Dem seat in the Senate and runs his mouth around the country for a national Dem ticket that’d probably have Booker, his friend, on it.
Terrible outcome for Democrats? At least Christie’d be out of the Oval, which he’d really f up because he’s given one speech on foreign policy in his career, and it put his knowledge of the matter at less than nil.
Btw, why the eff doesn’t Bill Bradley get back to the national stage? Anyone know? Love the guy. He was the 1st person I ever voted for and he was a solid ’08 surrogate for the President. Having read Bradley’s books and seen him lecture on China and Russia, I think he’d be a fine ambassador to either country. I did hear that he had discussions with the administration about some high muckety-muck thing or other, but I sense he’ll stay out of public life for a good while longer.
Ruckus
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I wasn’t thrilled with Kerry but he for sure was not anywhere near as bad as Jr. Then he lost and gave his concession speech. Now I knew that his major problem was his hiring abilities and the fact that he listened to the people he hired to run his campaign. Had he given any speech during the campaign like that you would have had a different view of him. I had seen him as plastic, sort of slick, made up and a throwaway. Not after his last speech as a candidate. He was real, he could speak intelligently, and he made me speechless. What a waste of a campaign.
magurakurin
Also, too: Al Gore and from the Republican side of the aisle… Bob Dole. To a large extent Hillary Clinton in the primary could also be included. The Mark Penn’s of the world are a mystery to me. How do they get their jobs?
BillinGlendaleCA
@magurakurin:
Pictures of politicians engaged in activities with goats.
PeakVT
I think Justice Ginsburg is a national treasure, but I also think she’s being really selfish here. If a Repuke wins in 2016, s/he could get as many as 4 shots (Ginsburg, Scalia Kennedy, Breyer) at nominating a justice in the first term. That would be devastating.
Hill Dweller
@Keith G: Christie doesn’t fight. He is a Koch lapdog, who does what he’s told.
Chris Andersen
It shows the fundamental cowardice of the GOP leaders that they let Christie pull off his crap about yelling fuck on national TV. Any sensible person would know that this was a monumental bluff of epic proportions (or Christie really is insane in which case the sooner the rest of the world sees this the better for the GOP.)
What it really means is that the GOP is lead by a bunch of cowards who will let a blowhard intimidate them. And these are the people who think they can handle people like Vladimir Putin?
FlipYrWhig
Re: Kerry, I don’t get how the guy who made his bones through Vietnam Veterans Against the War counts as an “entitled, privileged prick” except through a perverse media filter. I mean, Bush Jr., Romney, those are entitled, privileged pricks. John Kerry? Whatever his faults, they’re not that.
Ed in NJ
@eemom:
Talk to the shore homeowners who aren’t right in the center of the tourist areas. Those that actually live there or bought second homes away from the crowds. There are months long waits for building permits, inspections, etc. that have delayed those people from rebuilding or returning to their homes while the tourists return to the vacation spots.
The problem here in Jersey is that the Dems have thrown in the towel on Christie and handed him the election in a walkover. There are so many areas where Christie would be vulnerable to a real challenge: Xanadu, Atlantic City boondoggles, firemen, police, and teachers hate him, and now he is in cahoots with the Dems to try to wrest control of Rutgers and grab the Big 10 and new med school money. But the attitude here is that he’s unbeatable, and without a campaign, his favorables stay artificially high.
JoyfulA
@SiubhanDuinne: Howard Dean said last week that he’d consider running if he thought other candidates were unsatisfactory.
2liberal
anne – have you discussed this with mr cole who is known to like Chrisie?
Bob In Portland
@Ed in NJ: Agreed. With a halfway decent campaign a Dem could take him down.
Kay
The actual “Kerry campaign” on the ground wasn’t bad at all. He actually began the data-driven campaign and outreach to young people that Obama built on. They had a program called SAGE, I think (unless that was the one after, 2006, anyway, it had a catchy collection of letters).
His organizer here was great. 22 years old, from Kentucky, worked his ass off.
IMO, the problem with the “Kerry campaign” was outside groups. There were too many of them and it wasn’t coordinated. Honestly, it was just this barrage of really angry people running around in circles.
I don’t know what the national/ media
campaign was like because I wasn’t reading blogs then, but there was nothing wrong with the ACTUAL Kerry ground campaign. I think Kerry set the stage for Obama’s better campaign in ’08. If I recall correctly, Kerry actually gave Obama the all important lists going into 08, didn’t he?
Ruckus
@Kay:
I should have been a little clearer. I wasn’t talking about the ground game, I was talking about the public side, the speeches and appearances that just left me flat, and the seeming lack of response to being wrongly attacked. He seemed like a wimp. His record said exactly the opposite so it baffled me.
OGLiberal
@eemom: Ocean Grove resident here. The only significant damage here was to the boardwalk and it’s still a shit show because the religious org that owns the boardwalk is a private org, and privately owned recreational facilities don’t qualify for FEMA aid and neither the religious org nor the township (Neptune) had the foresight to prepare for this after being denied funds post-Irene. Many locals bitching about discrimination and “why do other towns get their boardwalks fixed with my tax dollars” but ignoring FEMA’s black and white interpretation of rules that have been in place since 1993. Sure, Ocean Grove has a significant LGBT community but most residents are cranky old “cut my taxes” white folks (unlike most of Neptune) who I’m sure hate big government until nonexistent global warming fucks up their boardwalk. Question is, did god (most old cranky white folks not religious, just extremely cranky and privileged) destroy the boardwalk because of the sodomites who live there or because Scott Rasmussen and his crew (he headed up the religious orgs civilian arm at the time…he’s a resident) wouldn’t let the gay grandmothers who had been together for 30+ years celebrate their civil union on “god’s” boardwalk?
BTW,Christie ain’t going out of his way to help us…but he shouldn’t. Had the boardwalk been owned by the township like every other boardwalk in the state, FEMA money would have had it fixed by now, like every other boardwalk in the state.
Kay
@Ruckus:
I think.people under-estimated, or were maybe unaware, how really devoted Bush supporters were. Bush had a loyal core group of supporters and they were like a freaking machine on election day. I do voter protection (which was a mess then, we’re better now) so I was going to.precincts and I live here and I saw who-all were coming out. He had enormous support from religious conservatives. I felt like I knew it was over by 4 PM. I was reluctant to go inside my house at that point because we had 25 people there doing GOTV and I was afraid they would be able to read my face, know I thought we would lose.
The thing is, we were never told he was ahead. I think that was limited to blogs. We all thought we were at best even or behind, so it maybe wasn’t so shocking to us. None of us saw Drudge exit polls, or whatever. If people were reading blogs, they weren’t telling me about it.
Anyway. I think his campaign deserves credit for starting what Obama then built on. We simply got better at it, but it was the same GENERAL idea; data-heavy, lots of local organizers, outreach to young people.
He didn’t really “connect” with people here, but I don’t know that it mattered. The Bush people LOVED Bush, and, as they say, “love wins” :)
Kay
@Ruckus:
It’s dumb, but the only lasting grudge I hold TO THIS DAY from that experience is James Carville. I was watching returns and I just had this strong sense that he was pleased at how bad it looked.
We had gay people come all the way from Indianapolis to make phone calls, because Bush gay-baited that whole campaign in this state wiith the anti-marriage law (in a very slimy, sneaky way) and I felt bad for them that we lost.
So I just directed all that animus at James Carville, because to me he looked happy about it. I still can’t listen to him talk. It’s ridiculous, I know.
eemom
@Ed in NJ:
@OGLiberal:
Thanks for the responses — was actually hoping to hear what some local folks think about this.
OG Lib, I was fascinated by the Methodist Church-LGBT coexistence there, about which I learned from my BIL and SIL who we were visiting. They told us that about the ineligibility for FEMA money — and also the shit about folks not being allowed on the beach on Sunday morning. Um, yes, there’s a price to be paid if you’re gonna impose your fucking sharia law on the place, god-botherers.
Great place to visit though!
Ruckus
@Kay:
I lived in OH in 2004 and understand. That is exactly what I was talking about. I look at Hillary in the same way. I think she is a good person and a good liberal. I think the same of Kerry. But both of them have made huge mistakes in the people they hire. Now a lot of us who hire people either to work for us directly or to work for the company we work for have made mistakes but I’d say rarely to the degree both Clinton and Kerry have. And then to seemingly give up control of a most important thing, their own identity…. That doesn’t speak well of either of them to me.
Look at the list of the top people they hired. All of whom have bigger egos than the candidates. That gets in the way of a good campaign. Actually it ‘s like them shooting themselves in their own genitals, which is never a good way to make positive things happen. James C is a prime example of an asshole that never should have been around a political campaign. He deserved your disdain.
Ruckus
@Kay:
We have talked about this before. As a business owner or a political campaigner a person has to be able to hire and fire people. One has to understand what an employee needs to do, to set up the job so that the person can understand the requirements and agree to do that. And if they don’t then they need to change or go. You can’t be so picky that nothing ever gets done but you don’t just take the first warm body either. Like most things in life hiring and firing is a skill, a learned skill. It is a sign of a good manager because it is so important. And to make it clear there are many steps between a problem and a firing, unless the problem is so egregious that firing is the only answer. To me, any federal elected official has to be first of all a good manager. And the president has to be one most of all as there are what a million or so employees in their charge. Hell there are what 1000-1200 people in the white house. It is just not possible to micro manage that. Just. Not. Possible. One has to be a good, no, great manager. And that shows up in a campaign, in the people hired to staff and run the organization.
Darkrose
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Mods are the number one reason I will always play on PC, given a choice. I’m pretty arachnophobic, and outright terrified by spider webs. I wouldn’t be able to play Skyrim were it not for the wonderful authors of the “No Insects” mods.
I wish I’d played Morrowind and Oblivion when they were released. I tried to go back and play Oblivion after playing Skyrim, and it was worse than trying to play Dragon Age Origins after playing DA2. Even though I thought the first one was a better game, I couldn’t adjust to the gameplay differences and the graphics changes.
Bob h
As an indication that he might not be physically up to running for President, note that at the Ridgewood Fourth of July parade he had to be transported in a truck. His opponent, Barbara Buono, walked.
Tehanu
@burnspbesq:
If by “useful” you mean “Would help me kick in the face of someone poorer and less privileged than I while I pick his pocket,” you’re undoubtedly right. Far right.