Get well soon!
Giacomo (#102) -- I agree with what you say; I agree with MacDonald's post. I just think that
(1) so far, Obama has surprised me unpleasantly more often than pleasantly; to return to MacDonald's point in the post, his SCOTUS nominee(s) may also be among the unpleasant surprises.
(2) "Obama in 2008 -- You really don't have a choice" is not what I had in mind when I voted for him in February.
Sure, there's a point there, though there's more to it than that: there is(/was) an 'end the arms race' aspect to public financing as well, i.e., an upper bound on what campaigns could spend. That upper bound is shattered no matter what the plurality of Obama's donors are like; the incentive to catch up is the same, even if the donor class will likely be different.
Maybe the campaign finance system -- including the public financing part -- is so broken and/or misguided that anyone who can opt out should do so. Thing is, though, then that's what Obama should have said that's what he'd do back in November. Instead he promised something else, back when that seemed the politic thing to do. I think citizens shouldn't be in the business of making excuses for that.
PS: the prior comment (#97) is in response to comment #94, by PJ Evans.
It seems to me McCain opted out of (or tried to opt out of) the *primary* election FEC regime, not the general election one. WaPo: "By signing up for matching money, McCain agreed to adhere to strict state-by-state spending limits and an overall limit on spending of $54 million for the primary season, which lasts until the party's nominating convention in September. The general election has a separate public financing arrangement." Esp. after borrowing money using expected FEC payments as collateral, that's certainly shady of the McCain campaign.
But that has no bearing on whether they've opted out of the general election campaign limits (once he's the formal nominee after the GOP convention). They have not, or had not, as of June 20, 08. NYTimes:"With his decision, Mr. Obama became the first candidate of a major party to decline public financing — and the spending limits that go with it — since the system was created in 1976, after the Watergate scandals. Mr. McCain, who has been a champion of the public financing system, affirmed Thursday that his campaign would accept public financing." (emphases added)
Like it or not (and I don't), Obama has opted out of a public financing system that McCain has not (or had not; again, I don't know what the case is right now). Therefore, like it or not (and I don't), Obama broke his 11/27/07 pledge.
what promise are *you* talking about? ...which McCain decided not to do
I assume we agree Obama has broken his promise not to support FISA amendment acts that include telcom immunity. I think he did re public funding of his campaign as well.
Obama answered "yes" in Nov, 27 2007 to this Common Cause question (link=.pdf): "If you are nominated for President in 2008 and your major opponents agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign, will you participate in the presidential public financing system?" I confess I don't know the state of play right now, 7/6/08, but when Obama opted out (6/19) McCain was publicly financed, via matching funds: per CNN he was considering opting out in response, meaning he had not yet done so.
Thus Obama had broken his 11//27/07 pledge. I'm not the only one who sees it this way; Common Cause pres. wrote "Sen. Obama did say at one point that he would opt into the system if his opponent did the same, and for that he gets a demerit.." It's easy to forget now, but Obama was in more of a dogfight back in Nov. 2007, and not just with Clinton. As it happened, he and Edwards were the only two to answer the questionnaire. There was little difference (admittedly, skimming) between Obama's answers and Edwards's, so Obama's answers helped preserve his "progressive cred" against perhaps the main challenger in that regard.
Walk away all you want, get two cookies; yes, I'm for real. My point is, he promised something, then he didn't do it. Now he's doing it again. That's a bad habit for a politician to get into, and a worse one for citizens to accept.
IMO, one does his campaign more of a favor by pointing that out than by "having his back." I agree that eschewing public financing made financial sense; he shouldn't have promised what he promised, is "all," but he should have kept his promise once he made it. *That* would have shown some guts, and the right kind of "being happy to take his lumps" (his words to FISA amendment act opponents on his web site).
Re MacDonald's point in the post: depends who Obama nominates (nearly said appoints) if he gets the chance, doesn't it?
I have a sinking feeling it will be Richard Posner -- U. Chicago connection, nice 'n conservative 'n' "thoughtful" 'n' willing to boldly be a contrarian about all those stupid civil liberties. Posner's the kind of guy who could write opinions that would recast the way the Supreme Court sees itself -- and not for the better, I think.
Nominating Posner might keep the wrong kind of people from hating Obama *too* much. An underlying hypothesis of mine that I can't shake is that it's his fear for his personal safety that's motivating Obama's swing to the right. I think he could pull off (or could have pulled off) a landslide without any concessions (provisionally taking his word for it that that's what they are).
But now that he's a proven liar re FISA amendment act and public campaign finance, one of his best attributes ("different kind of politics," "change you can believe in," etc.) is toast.
@46: "I didn't know what they were, so I cut them off."
Hmm. You might want to expand that discussion with your son beyond aglets. :)
How about the word for "things we don't know the word for"?
One of the coolest maps I've ever seen is at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum: an example of a 'stick chart' used by Marshall Islanders to navigate their part of the South Pacific:
"Marshall Islanders constructed stick charts to teach navigation. The charts incorporated ocean features, observable to the keen-eyed. This chart guides seafarers on a 160 km (100 mi) voyage, from Jaluit Atoll to the island of Nanorik. Curved sticks represent constant swells, while the short horizontal sticks between them represent currents."
Who knows, maybe "Strange Maps" will pick this one sometime.
One more thing: I think Bowers is right to point out Obama's bemusement about the crowds he gathers, and that that's a concern. At this point, I get a diffident feeling from Obama, one that resists a sense of responsibility towards a actual group of people wanting an actual agenda rather to his own destiny or some such thing. That's understandable -- "who are these people and how do they think they know me?" But it's a fragile basis for then going ahead with a presidential bid. Obama's an interesting, smart, good guy, I'm not ruling him out at all, but I'd like a higher movement-to-charisma ratio there too.
Well, having clicked through after instead of before posting my comment, it seems Dean's campaign (or "movement") is the lightning Bowers wants to catch in a bottle again. Not the worst ambition, but he does exalt "movement" per se. An "ew" for that, movements are no guarantee of good movement.
Does showing up to the victory party for some candidate now entitle you to a place in the New World Order?
Somebody still has to do the work.(#4, writerious)
It seems to me the above is actually similar to the last part of Bowers' comments, about being part of the small group that kicks things off or takes responsibility for keeping it going. My guess is that the Draft Webb group and Webb's win are more likely Bowers' model than the Bolsheviks and the October Revolution.
So I think Bowers' comments are clunky, but not "ew"-worthy. I do disagree with his assessment of the role of 'large rallies'; I think they're usually not where history is made so much as where history is recognized to have happened -- the exclamation point of the sentence rather than the subject and verb. (Yes there are exceptions.) Where history happens is somewhere in between the necessary small beginning Bowers likes to be in on and the celebrations he enjoys.
The Invisible Hand of the Market strikes again.
Siberian hamsters used to study obesity.
--Why, what are they studying now?
Badaboom.
(spent a while trying to see if it was some kind of fingers--wrongly-positioned keyboard thing.)
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2008 | 9 |
| 2007 | 10 |
| 2006 | 13 |
| 2005 | 4 |
| 2004 | 2 |
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