The Light: Hillary

The Tea Party Convention has political operatives shaking in their boots.

Astroturf campaigns make money for the consultants and the image managers. Organized political field operations make legends out of the professional organization directors, such Manyon M. Millican who directed the national voter identification and turnout for The Committee to RE-Elect the President (CREEP) for Nixon in 1972.

Until it becomes a formal political party and looses the quaint feel that endears the concept of a “movement” to independent voters, the National Tea Party represents what the political experts hate and fear. Active independents, with a little i.

Professionals like campaigns nicely wrapped with a bow on top. Suppress the opponent’s party. Energize your base. And campaign to the big block in the middle. The middle is easy to work. They are not getting memos from local party leaders and they make their decisions late in the campaign.

That gives the pros time to “educate” the early undecided voter; identify which ones are buying your message; re-educate the rest based on your first field results; identify again and then make sure that, on election day, you quietly turn out your Yes votes.

But what happens if these people start educating themselves before the pros get a chance to influence them? And what happens if locally raised groups are already performing functions once reserved by the parties, such as contacting their neighbors and friends and identifying who among them is animate about and intimate with the idea of the need for change?

Well, the answer should be obvious. The pros go nuts. Their new vacation home is in jeopardy so they will go on television and write junk pieces of op-ed works. They will try to destroy this movement before it gets traction. Citizens organizing independent of a political machine are a threat to the income of the professionals in the business.

Watch the talk shows and read the papers. The pros will find a five second sound byte, out of a ten hour tape of the convention, and beat the “extreme” logo to death and then invite their hosts to tramp on the body they just flopped flat before them in an effort to discredit this movement and to discourage others – people who may not want to be labeled kooks – from acting on their own.

After watching some of the presentations of the Tea Party Convention on C-Span once would easily conclude that these are not tin-foil-hat-wearing nuts. These are people who do not appreciate the power and influence that the national political parties have over our government.

Zogby says:

According to Zogby there is One common thread.

Hint to consultants: Careful with that idea of changing the message.

(I)ndependence is being decapitalized, and the pros have no idea what to do about it.

This video explains why I haven’t uploaded many videos lately. It is the first in a three-part series that tells of a musical I have been working on, which I hope will at least provide some entertainment for my friends on No Quater and on my Youtube channel.

If you enjoy musicals, you might enjoy this affectionate parody of musicals in general and some of the great classic musicals like West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Damn Yankees, Singing In The Rain, a Chorus Line, Hello Dolly, How to Succeed in Business (Without Really Trying), and a number of others.

Two more videos are to follow (unless everyone hates the first one!)`

Naturally, my prejudices are evident in the video, even if it is about something as seemingly innocuous as musicals. Political correctness is one of them.

The Atlantic is already debating John Edwards’ comeback chances in politics (one suggestion: wait until Elizabeth passes away from cancer).

Every time John Edwards’ tale of lies and adultery seems to have reached its sordid limit, a newly depraved twist arises. Is Edwards unsalvageable? Could he ever return to any form of public life? We asked a chorus of Dark Arts practitioners.
——-

Focus on Fatherhood: Edwards has “an opportunity to come across as an outstanding and doting father in a way that most other men who stray don’t. And I do believe the American people like and respect people who are good parents,” said David Heller, president of Main Street Communications.

Outlast Your Ex: One prominent PR consultant voiced what others were too polite to say (but only, of course, on the condition of anonymity): John Edwards will have a hard time venturing back into the public eye as long as his wife is present to remind Americans of the scope of his betrayal. “I honestly don’t believe he can make a true comeback until well after Elizabeth has passed away,” the consultant said. “As long as she is alive, his comeback chances are dead.”

Meanwhile, resident Palin-gynecologist-hater (won’t use his name; it makes my keyboard bleed) continues to refer to Sarah Palin as all the horsemen of the apocalypse rolled into a skirt.

Titled “One Last Word” (could we possibly be that lucky?), gyno-wannabe breathlessly says two lines from Palin’s Nashville address stood out for him:

Two lines stood out for me. The first is a sign that she believes and her followers believe that she has a divine destiny. She is Esther, with a touch of martyrdom:

“I will live, I will die for the people of America.”

The second was the Dolchstoss attack on the duly elected president of the United States:

“We need a commander-in-chief not a professor of law.”

These two potent messages – delegitimizing Obama as “the other” and as a weak-kneed traitor to the troops, and casting herself as the avatar of the real America, ready to die for its survival – are political gold. Most politicians in liberal democracies she somewhat from stating them so obviously, because they clearly invoke certain, shall we say, non-democratic forms. Not she.

Yep, these two lines are dynamite!!! Palin loves her country and says so in a somewhat over-the-top manner (she WAS in Nashville – country music USA). Then she has the utter gall to call Obama a. . . . . . PROFESSOR!! Horrors. With cutting language like that, I don’t think political discourse will ever be the same.

Of course, this writer did pardon himself for missing the whole Edwards story because, you know, it hit too close to home.

It just seemed too awful for me to believe. I mean his wife, whom I took to be a very decent person, had terminal cancer. Although adultery is extremely common – especially among people disturbed enough to seek political office – I dismissed it too easily. I mean his wife was confronting death on a daily basis. I just couldn’t believe a husband could do that to his wife then. I also felt protective toward Elizabeth, feeling that investigating this would be deeply hurtful to a woman faced with mortality. Maybe my own brushes with mortality affected me in this as well.

Of course, Mr. Trig-truther, it’s all about you. Mr. Trig-truther had a “brush with mortality” and looked the other way on Edwards. Mr. Trig-truther, however, doesn’t have a womb, so game on regarding Palin’s youngest son. What a guy! What a hard-hitting truth seeker! What a jerk.

Kind of interesting, isn’t it? On the one hand, the Atlantic considers how John Edwards might make a comeback despite a fall of Shakespearean proportions amid lies piled on lies and a sense that there is no center to him. On the other hand Atlantic’s resident Palin-hater-gyno-wannabe says to know Palin is to know fear. So, somehow Edwards is still more viable than Palin? Are you kidding me?

Glum.

Powerless, lackadaisical, aimless remarks by POTUS re the jobless report Friday 5. What is the “hot air” remark? POTUS tries defensive sarcasm at half-speed. And the claims that losing 22k jobs (January estimate) compares well to the losing of 800k jobs last January 2009 is both cynical and ignorant. The long term jobless stats (below) are discouraging and ominous. The confused media reporting of a jobless rate that appears to improve to 9.7% while the month shows a loss of jobs does not help the day’s summary.  The economy is glum.  

POTUS has been told by Axelrod that there is a storm building in the Democratic majority.  The professional campaign ops are telling their candidates to hold on.  What is the pay-off?  Have Axelrod and POTUS decided to throw the Democratic majorities under the bus?  Have they decided that POTUS improves as a candidate if he is running for re-election against a Republican House and a comatose and Harry-Reidless Senate?  Does POTUS welcome the victim of the villainous GOP scenario?  Strange, listless performance by POTUS on the weekend of the exuberant Tea Party Convention – the After Obamatantion — in Memphis.  Speaking to John Avlon, author, “Wingnuts,” on Sunday 7, re the energy of the Tea Party.  Eight million jobless creates the energy for creative politics.  Who is Huey Long?  Who is Wendell Willkie?  Where is Fala?

All major news publications covered Sarah Palin’s speech yesterday, making sure to point out she collected a large fee for her work. She replied she is keeping none of it, but giving it to “the cause.” According to many sources, while she was greeted with cries of “Run, Sarah, Run,” she kept her political intentions to herself. Palin also addressed the importance of keeping the Tea Party Movement a grass roots effort and does not pretend to be its leader. From WaPo:

…the movement shuns any semblance of political elitism. And although many activists here embrace Palin as a spokeswoman, they are deeply divided over whether they want her as their leader — or whether they want any leader at all.
Palin understands this.

“I caution against allowing this movement to be defined by any one leader or any one politician,” she said Saturday night. “The tea party movement is not a top-down operation. It’s a ground-up call to action. . . . This is about the people, and it’s bigger than any king or queen of the tea party, and it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter.”

Palin, by some accounts the standard-bearer of the Republican Party, in her speech took an unusual step of encouraging competitive party primary campaigns.

“Contested primaries aren’t civil war,” she said. “They’re democracy at work, and that’s beautiful.”

I appreciate her point about contested primaries. It’s time we shake up the political landscape and inject some new blood into the process.

According to The NY Times…

…pressed about the relationship between the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement, and whether the latter should become a third party, Ms. Palin suggested the two should be compatible.

“The Republican Party would be really smart to start trying to absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible,” she said. “This is a beautiful movement because it is shaping the way politics are conducted. You’ve got both party machines running scared.”

I suppose she is pushing for Republicans to absorb the tea partiers since they adhere to somewhat more conservative principles, though I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this either. A third party has never been able to take hold in this country and the worry is in siphoning off votes that ulitmately wind up keeping a less than desirable representative in power.

The Republican Party, as it stands now, is just as big a problem as the Democratic Party. Too much entrenched interest plagues both. Her comments about both “party machines running scared” lends some comfort, however.

I would rather not see this movement co-opted by any organized group that is already toxic. My concern is not about small or large government but smart government. Unlike the false way in which the movement was first characterized, I don’t have any problem with paying taxes – I have a problem with waste. I don’t have a problem with health care reform. I have a problem with insurance giveaways, pork, cuts to Medicare that endanger seniors in this country and a lack of transparency. I don’t have a problem with either party as much as I have a problem with corruption in both.

It is also interesting that after the disgusting sexual slurs that greeted Tea Party protesters last year, being called “teabaggers” by everyone from Senator Chuck Schumer to newscasters Anderson Cooper, David Schuster, and pundits like Olbermann and Maddow, not to mention our POTUS making “teabagging” comments as well, now The New Yorker, Newsweek and more are referring a bit more respectfully to “The Tea Party Movement.” No matter how these news outlets tried to diminish the numbers of participants in rallies and protests last year, clearly, more than a few have figured out they would be wise to treat tea parties members with a little more respect. Quite a stunning turnaround. Palin’s “running scared” comment would seem to be accurate.

The greatest effect this movement can have is to scare officials in both parties into remembering how to do the people’s business, instead of their own or that of their cronies. Congress needs to emerge from its insulated bubble, drop the elitist attitude and be more respectful to the concerns of its constituents. To the extent that Sarah Palin can assist in drawing attention to ordinary Americans who want more attentive representation for their hard earned tax dollars and contributions, her “lightning rod” is most welcome.

What is your forecast for the Tea Party Movement? What effect would you like it to have? And is it something that will help or hurt in the long run.

Please tell us what you think…

Thought some of you might enjoy the morning after shots. There is light after the darkness. I woke early today to put the brisket on the BBQ as part of the prep for tonight’s Super Bowl Party.

Our winter wonderland.

Whether it’s AIG’s perverse multiple rewarding of the executives who almost brought our economy down or the likes of Bernie Madoff and Ken Lay, we see our country as rife with greed at the expense of weary American taxpayers. The 2009 Global Corruption Report by watchdog group Transparency International has some stunning revelations about us and the rest of the world.

For the United States there is both good news and bad news.

Here’s some good news. Out of 180 countries surveyed, the United States is tied in 18th place with Belgium and Japan as having lower amounts of business and political corruption. Denmark gets the best rating followed by New Zealand and Sweden. Better ratings reflect political stability, long-established conflict-of-interest regulations and solid, functioning public institutions.

The worst offender is Somalia followed by Myanmar, Iraq, Haiti, and Afghanistan. (Notice two especially interesting countries at the bottom of the barrel?) China weighs in as tied with 8 other countries for 72nd place, and Russia tied with 3 other countries at a dismal 147th.

It appears that we have made some improvements compared to most countries when it comes to corrupt practices. The report notes that “despite prominent corruption scandals and the lack of transparency and accountability that has been shown to lie at the root of the financial crisis, there has been encouraging and real progress towards stronger corporate integrity.” This is not to say that we are doing great. The report continues, “Corporate performance in the fight against corruption often does not yet match corporate commitments, however.”

Before patting ourselves on the back for making positive strides, it is important to mention that most of the rest of the world is a stinking cesspool of sleaze.

And interestingly, we are skidding backwards in one area. Can you guess which one?

If you guessed lobbying our legislators, you are correct. Lobbying, after all, is a euphemism for bribery. And bribery of one sort or another is often at the root of corruption.

Despite the fact that the United States is one of the few countries that regulates lobbyists, lobbying expenses have almost doubled over the last decade, reaching $2.8 billion in 2007. The all-time record of the number of lobbyists was 16,000 in 2008 (and this may have risen since then). The Center for Public Integrity, has consistently documented unethical ties between business, their Washington-based lobbyists, and powerful politicians.

Term limits and public campaign financing anyone? Maybe if those we elect to represent us know they only have so much time and so much money as opposed to hustling while trying to keep their jobs forever, we would attract candidates who only have the American peoples’ best interests at heart.

The complete and extremely detailed Transparency International report can be accessed and downloaded here.

The First Lady is getting her share of grief for mentioning her daughters while discussing obesity. ABC News reports in their article, Did Michelle Obama Send the Wrong Message With Obesity Comments?:

The first lady made the issue of healthy eating personal last week at an event in Alexandria, Va., where she kicked off a campaign addressing the issue of childhood obesity.

“We went to our pediatrician all the time,” Obama said. “I thought my kids were perfect — they are and always will be — but he [the doctor] warned that he was concerned that something was getting off balance.”

“I didn’t see the changes. And that’s also part of the problem, or part of the challenge. It’s often hard to see changes in your own kids when you’re living with them day in and day out,” she added. “But we often simply don’t realize that those kids are our kids, and our kids could be in danger of becoming obese. We always think that only happens to someone else’s kid — and I was in that position.”

It is my sense that the first lady should not have mentioned her own children in this debate. I don’t think she was trying to shame her kids publically. But by using them as an example to show other families she is in the same position they are, she is being insensitive to the fact that Sasha and Malia live in the worst kind of goldfish bowl — growing up with attention paid to their every move. Young girls are sensitive enough about their appearance without their schoolmates reading on the net that their Mom is worried about the size of their behinds.

I have personal experience with this, being on a diet since age 11. I always felt criticized at home for my baby fat and sensed I was being closely monitored. The result was a bad relationship with food that lasted for years. I have at one time been borderline anorexic and at other times, subject to binge eating. While I have been relatively slim my entire life, it took me until I was nearly 40 to forget about dieting (p.s., diets don’t work).

Oddly, when I no longer obsessed over what I ate, I started exercising regularly and ate what I felt like. I threw my scale in the trash. Checking the fit of my pants is good enough to see if I need to lay off the bread for a few days. It took 30 years to figure this out. At 51, I’m probably in the best shape of my life. And for the record, a mother clothes shopping for her daughter, making comments to the saleslady while her child is within earshot such as “Give her the next size, she needs it is the hips” is a killer.

Worry and fear creates the obsession. Making a child hyper aware of his or her weight and appearance can make food a drug of choice and grow any potential eating disorder into a worse problem than it might have been. A better answer is modeling good behavior. By setting an example for her girls without preaching about it, I wonder if a better result is possible. Girls are always worried about being compared unfavorably to their mothers. To feel like Mommy does not approve of them in some way is a recipe for disaster. I’m no shrink, but common sense tells me that when children feel loved and approved of for who they are, it is possible they will not require “a drug of choice” to hide in.

Laura Collins Lyster-Mensh, an eating disorder activist and executive director of Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Disorder (F.E.A.S.T.) pointed out the First Lady should discuss “behavioral change, not weight loss”:

“We’ve confused health and weight in a way that’s very confusing for children and very confusing for parents,” Lyster-Mensh said. “When we speak publicly about putting our children on a diet, we start to get into weight stigma and confusing the message to families.”

The focus on obesity, Lyster-Mensh said, turns this into an issue of appearances, which does not bode well for children, especially girls.

“There is simply no reason to be pushing children into weight reduction diets and that’s the message parents out there get,” Lyster-Mensh said. “Dieting is a gateway drug to eating disorders for those with a biological predisposition to eating disorders.”

I do not pretend there is an easy solution. Obesity is a huge problem in our country brought on partially by obsession with too many electronic toys that keep one sitting on one’s backside, too much junk food, and no P.E. Not to mention kids internalizing the family stress around them.

What do you think the First Lady should have done? What is a better solution here.

Remembering my own time as a “tweener” I never appreciated being discussed in front of other people by my parents as though I were an inanimate object or their possession. I think it would have been prudent for the First Lady to remember that in her quest to help a national problem, her children do not need to be a casualty of that discussion.

If one picture is worth a thousand words then I have four thousand for you. We are being hammered with an amazing amount of snow. It is heavy and causing trees to topple and, when they come down, so to do some powerlines. (I installed a 15,000 kw generator five years ago, so I’m not feeling the pain). We have two feet on the ground and it is still snowing.

This a shot of my side porch. You can see the porch railing in the background.

Here’s another angle.

And the view from my home office:

Out back we have had a couple of bird feeders go down. Some of the trees also are leaning precariously.

Just a reminder, you don’t mess with Mother Nature. She can be cranky.

The widely anticipated February Unemployment Report covering the month of January was just released. Let’s dive right in and take a look at the numbers . . .

I. UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
August: 9.4%
September: 9.7%
October: 9.8%
November: 10.2%…revised to 10.1%
December: 10%
January: 10%
– February Consensus Expectation: 10.1%
- February Actual: 9.7%

>> LD’s comments: A fluke. A drop in the rate would typically be viewed as a positive, but then why didn’t we see job growth? Today’s report indicates that a lot of people have given up looking for work, thus shrinking the overall labor pool. The U-6 (the underemployment rate) is now 16.5%. Better? Don’t be fooled. I think it is again more an indication that people are exiting the labor force overall.

II. NON-FARM PAYROLL (click here for definition of this term)
July: loss of 463k
August: loss of 304k
September: loss of 154k
October: loss of 139k
November: loss of 111k…revised to a loss of 127k jobs
December: loss of 11k…revised to a gain of 4k
January: loss of 85k
- February Consensus Expectation: 0, that is no job gain or loss
- February Actual: a loss of 20k jobs.

>> LD’s comments: weaker than it appears as a lot of jobs added were temporary workers and Census workers. Revisions from prior two months was a net loss of 5k jobs.

III. AVERAGE HOURLY EARNINGS
August: .3%
September: .4%
October: .1%
November: .3%
December: .1%
January: .2%
- February Consensus Expectation: .2
- February Actual: .2%

>>LD’s comments: as expected.

IV. AVERAGE HOURLY WORKWEEK
July: 33.0 hours
August: 33.1 hours
September: 33.1 hours
October: 33.0 hours
November: 33.0 hours
December: 33.2 hours
January: 33.2 hours
- February Consensus Expectation: 33.2 hours
- February Actual: 33.9 hours

>> LD’s comments: this number surprises me. Are we truly seeing the increased demand drive the hours worked this much higher? Overall, this is a positive in the midst of otherwise mixed to negative news.

V. FURTHER COLOR: the major piece of news within our employment situation was actually hinted at a few days ago and that is that the Department of Labor revised overall employment for 2009 down by 930k jobs. Were they looking through rose-colored glasses all along? Who knows? This revision is an indication our recession was even deeper than believed or, in my opinion, reported.

The cheerleaders will run out onto the field and smile for the camera, but don’t be fooled. The labor pool has shrunk and that explains the drop in the rate.

Where are the real jobs? Where is the growth? We’re still looking and waiting.

VI. MARKET REACTION

Pre (8:25am) and Post-report (8:50am)

2yr Tsy: .80 and .80…ho hum…
10yr Tsy: 3.59% and 3.62%…ho hum…
DJIA Futures: -58 points and -7 points…slightly better
S&P 500 Futures: -6.7 and -2.2…
U.S. Dollar Index: 80.19 and 80.04…slight downtick…

Questions and comments always encouraged and appreciated.

LD