Two can play the attack game. The only difference is that this ad isn’t full of lies.
Recent articles in the New Yorker and the New York Times have made it clear that Barack is adept at Chicago style street fighting politics. In terms of organizers on the ground Obama beats McCain 3:1. All the old politics blabocrats on cable TV are still measuring this race in terms of old time memes. But the Republicans are clearly worried about the millions of new registered voters. As the Wall Street Journal bravely reported this morning, the Republicans are up to their old tricks–Scrubbing the Voter roles.
26 responses so far ↓
Alex Bowles // August 13, 2008 at 2:11 pm |
“The middle class first”?
I realize who the target it, but is class warfare really change we can believe it?
I’m not talking about his targets at the top, either. I’m referring to the much bigger bottom, who should quite rightfully feel alienated by this.
Or is Obama now doing what Democrats have long being accused of doing, and simply taking the Black, and disproportionally poor vote for granted?
Why not just say Americans First? That’s the real thrust of the now-we-can-get-out-of-Iraq message, isn’t it?
Seriously, WTF?
Jon Taplin // August 13, 2008 at 2:18 pm |
It’s his rejoinder to McCain’s “Country First” motto. It worked for Bill Clinton. Besides, surveys show that 90% of the public think they are in the “middle Class”.
P. Cross // August 13, 2008 at 2:42 pm |
Jon- Sounds like are you smarter than a 2nd. grader program. Is this what BHO thinks of the American voter?
Alex Bowles // August 13, 2008 at 2:43 pm |
Well, if people think he’s talking to them, I suppose it’s slightly less risky.
I just didn’t realize that so much of poor America didn’t see themselves as such. That’s cause for optimism , I suppose.
Also may be one more reason why the Edwards bid fell flat.
Jon Taplin // August 13, 2008 at 3:35 pm |
Alex and P. Cross-The whole American dream– post 1981 Reagan tax cuts– was built on the idea that “You too could become a millionaire, and get your taxes cut.” Everyone thinks they are middle class because everyone has permission, pushed by the media and reality TV, to dream they too could win the lottery, become an American Idol, a Survivor, an Andy Warhol cartoon character.
len bullard // August 13, 2008 at 4:08 pm |
“Everyone thinks they are middle class because everyone has permission, pushed by the media and reality TV, to dream they too could win the lottery, become an American Idol, a Survivor, an Andy Warhol cartoon character.”
That is all too true. Now it has invaded the software industry via the handful of successes of the dot.bomb. A few manage it but they are the beneficiaries of the VC and hedge fund managers. Mostly this is product without value and it collapses as the hype cycle collapses around it. One would think investors would be learning to look at the business plans, but a sucker a minute as they say.
A problem is this meme has propagated beyond our shores into Indonesia. The carnage will be evident soon enough. We do see a lot of incredible nonsense in our industry these days.
There is no such thing as a viable frictionless system. Context IS friction.
Hugo // August 13, 2008 at 5:53 pm |
Now THAT is something that really ought to be copyrighted. Kudos to len bullard for giving us “Context IS friction.” Damn, how I coulda used that to get through the endless postgrad debates about whether the U.S. is more characterized by “conflict” or by “consensus”. Who thought up this crazy merde? You’re damn right, len bullard, “Context IS friction.” That blows the old bad dichotomy right out of the water. Thanks.
Has anyone noticed that Jon’s theme lately has been to challenge, or question, what may be excessively facile and false old dualisms. Ve-e-e-e-e-ry In-terr-eschtink! But ni-i-i-ice…”
LH // August 13, 2008 at 7:12 pm |
Help me out guys, this one is over my head. I’m not sure what is meant by “frictionless system”, and what is the context?
len // August 13, 2008 at 8:09 pm |
Dang! Someone is covering Running Up That Hill on “Bones”. Wow! A sign…
During the dot.bomb, the web mavens were making claims about infinite or limitless profit on the web. The term was ‘frictionless economy’ as if digitalization implied it was a lossless system.
Dr. Goldfarb (Charles – inventor of SGML and grandfather of XML) looked at me and said, “Len, it’s a classic stock bubble”. And lo, it was. A lot of retirement money put big pink houses in the hills of San Jose and didn’t pay back a dime. But the greed was based on seeing the Microsoft millionaires and the lack of knowledge about the Internet. People drank the kool-aid and pretended to see the pretty colors.
No one I know lost a dime.
Context is the notion of local systems with local needs and local rules. These can conflict with the larger network, the environment at scale. Chaos can’t be eliminated from the system and that local noise becomes the friction. In the case of the elections, it is the local cultures.
The so-called lefties are stuck in the disease of race, but race isn’t as powerful a retarding force as the fact that a lot of people don’t like rap or artists that talk about ‘hos. They’ve had enough of rock stars and they question smiling faces.
There isn’t a unifying meme. There is a weak opposition that some believe will be overcome with a lot of semiotic kitsch (Change We Can Believe In! We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For!) but just a few well put together satires puts big dents in it.
That is the problem for Obama. His handlers have created a thin context and it is sticky in some locales like a cockleburr. So far, he fails to do what Reagan did: find the context that is wide and shared. His biggest dangers are his supporters because telling an electorate they are nasty old white wrinkly racists isn’t exactly going to make them like them or him.
That is why his numbers aren’t better. His own supporters keep deflating them. I didn’t mean to say they are mindless consumers. Quite the contrary. They are very mindful of what they are consuming and if it tastes like medicine, they spit it out.
P. Cross // August 14, 2008 at 4:44 am |
LH- India has it’s cast system, every knows their place. Russia where everyone knew their place. The US where every one has the right to a place.
I guess if we had a a ruling class of the first part and the worker bees of the second part, being under control for the most part the only real friction would be simply between the parties of the first part and the second part.
Ultimately it will be left up to the builder/boss bees to construct this society where all the worker bee’s will be the same except for the boss bee’s because of course they are the bee keepers who really understand the use of smoke. They have eliminated the need for mirrors, to smoky and overcast to be of any benefit.
Context? we don’t need no stinking context, conformity, uniformity in thoughts and deportment that’s whats everywhere needed.
PC in the morning
rhbee1 // August 14, 2008 at 6:00 am |
Context is friction only if the context is moving. Contained it is static or if you will the status quo. But context causes friction, I might buy into that. And the context these days for us poor middle classers is the economy. And the friction is being caused by the middle classers waking up to the art of living frugally while their masters still want them to go to the Big Mart and buy, buy, buy.
Jon Taplin // August 14, 2008 at 6:42 am |
Len- As you spend time in this community, you will find that your cliches of “lefties” will start to dissolve. Check with Hugo, P. Cross and Morgan. We’re all just looking for solutions to get us out of the mess of the last 8 years. In fact some of the ideas we have been discussing like the New Federalism (check out the term on the blog search box) try to take local context into the equation.
Of course I really think you are wrong about Obama. There is potentially a generational pact between the Boomers and the Millenials around issues of the environment, education health care and a general reordering of our priorities. This of course pisses of guys like Morgan, who are in neither group. But demographics is destiny and we and our children have the numbers.
len bullard // August 14, 2008 at 6:46 am |
It is the economy and it goes beyond gas. Where is the highest rate of foreclosures on houses? California.
Where I live, foreclosures are almost negligible and we contribute an unusually high number of people to the armed services. We don’t tend to live as high on the hog and we organize our communities around church memberships, not universities. One can critique that but it is remarkably effective for raising children in communities without a lot of government interference. Why? It keeps the list of choices to choose from very local.
Context is locale. Ideas and people move, but for the most part, culture is of a place and time. The biggest mistake is not to recognize the dominance of the locale and the weak associativity of the global culture.
“All politics is local.” Tip ONeill
If you want to get into the abstractions, it helps to understand page one of Claude Shannon’s work on information theory and the concept of the ‘chooser of choices’. To get back control, you must not simply choose, but you must control the list you choose from.
len bullard // August 14, 2008 at 7:05 am |
Of course they will dissolve, Jon. That’s the point of being here. As I said, I grew up in a very different place. Your tribe was recording hits. Mine was building rockets to go to the Moon, but we are of the same time. Just not the same locale.
On the other hand, your notions of race and the victory of the counter culture may begin to morph as well.
If we find common ground, that will be something worth having, yes?
I understand the numbers and the demographics, but the elite cultivar cannot survive outside the hot house, and cannot evolve without the genes from the wild.
chester shure // August 14, 2008 at 8:48 am |
create a table starting when Regan took office and every 4 years through now. For each period, list the following datapoints all in 1981 dollars: (1) NAT’L DEBT; WEALTH OF THE TOP5% OF TAXPAYERS;MEDIAN FAMILY INCOME; % OF NAT’L DEBT HELD BY (RUSSIA,CHINA,JAPAN,SAUDI ARABIA)
this chart will knock a lot of socks off
P. Cross // August 14, 2008 at 8:53 am |
Len,
I’d say we pretty much agree that something was really messy about the last eight years and most if not all would agree the Republicans were complicit, as in participated , but the devil is in the details and I don’t believe we have reached a consensus quite YET!!!!
chester shure // August 14, 2008 at 8:56 am |
politicians always spin.
politicians make statisticians spin
your best shot at truth is looking at data YOU think important.
Son of Bill Brasky // August 14, 2008 at 9:54 am |
It’s a commercial.. hard to get everyone in a 30 second spot.
At least he hasn’t resorted to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears to gain attention.
Rick Turner // August 14, 2008 at 10:16 am |
The president’s job is to inspire others to do the grunt work. That’s the gig. In the current case, it’s the VP’s job (which he’s taken in a kind of ghost coup) to be the puppeteer hoping to get his puppet (GW) to inspire people to do his bidding. Unfortunately, it’s worked all too well for nearly eight years.
Jon Taplin // August 14, 2008 at 10:21 am |
Len- I organize as much of my life around my church community as I do around my university community. That of course confuses some of my friends, but that’s cool.
len bullard // August 14, 2008 at 10:39 am |
We’re discovering we have a lot in common. That’s very cool, Jon.
Are you watching the dustups over the roll call votes at the convention? This is masterful. It builds suspense, emotionalism, passion, all the stuff needed to glue people to their tubes for a program that has been a ratings dog for two decades.
Designing Democrats – The Season Opener.
@rick: spot on. If outing a NOC didn’t get people’s attention, I’m not sure what will. Oh yeah. $4 a gallon gas. It seems it has to get personal.
@p. cross: Trouble is, there is a lot of complicity. The Democrats fed at the trough too. The Net millionaires have been feeding. In fact, it’s been buffets at the Burger King for lots of us. Then the Chinese stepped out with a check.
Oddly, I feel excited. We are pretty good at getting in gear when our backs are against the wall. Politics aside, quieter electric cars, wind power, all of this is exciting. Now we have to figure out how to pay for those monster server farms with their huge air conditioning bills. We’ve been floating on largesse there too.
Now if we can just talk Kate Bush into touring….
Steve // August 14, 2008 at 11:29 am |
Republicans are up to their old tricks of “scrubbing the voter roles”? That WSJ piece said nothing about any “tricks”. Why do you have a problem with trying to validate people’s eligibility to vote? Maybe voter fraud is one of the Democrats old tricks.
Hugo // August 14, 2008 at 2:01 pm |
Jon,
Poll tampering is one of the few things that make me want to buy a seasoned ash axe handle.
They’re doing it down in Mississippi as we speak. All manner of it. It’s the Democrats this time. Fortunately their Secretary of State is a straight arrow and on the job. Mississippi, given its history of appalling violations of the franchise, is deeply embarrassed and is trying quickly to avoid further embarrassment.
Just thinking about it makes me crow for the Second Amendment, because if this stuff started to become a regular occurrence outside Puerto Rico and Cook County, I could really see a use for an armed militia. And I (a) have seen some abominable poll abuses, and (b) strongly favor a ban on handguns (with the usual exceptions).
P. Cross // August 14, 2008 at 5:15 pm |
Oh! my god, I’m feeling faint, earlier I was light head over agreeing with Jon and now I’m disagreeing, “strongly favor a ban on handguns (with the usual exceptions).” with Hugo, I think.
Luckily thanks to the Supremes, Elvis has left the building.
Hugo // August 15, 2008 at 6:30 am |
P.C.,
You can’t run even a half-decent insurrection on handguns. these days. I’m glad that Ocean’s 9 erred on the side of close construction this time, but the Framers weren’t talking about pistols; they were talking about tyranny, and shoulder weapons with which to fight it, again. Jefferson, as you know, positively expected that the People would see fit to take up arms sometime in the next generation.
But I’m damned if I’ll be unilateral about it. Not unless everyone has to do it, will I ever part with my trusty old Shaky Jake, a Model 1911.
STS // August 15, 2008 at 7:39 am |
McCain’s “Country First ALWAYS” is a pretty direct nationalist appeal. Now that he’s got a story line in the Caucasus involving the bad guys we (most of us) grew up with, I think this may have some resonance. Certainly nationalism based exclusively on Osama bin Forgotten wasn’t carrying him past the economic graveyard.
Krugman’s column today is a welcome reminder of the way globalization fell apart last time around: in a descent into nationalism. He also provides a handy link to the masterpiece that launched Keynes’ remarkable public career: The Economic Consequences of the Peace. I highly recommend it (both Keynes and Krugman).
Obama needs to get in front of this Georgia situation before Russia elects a Cold-Warrior-in-Chief for us.