First he notes how similarly Palin is positioned in terms of base support to where Obama was at the begiining of his White House run:
Looking at those numbers, I would argue that -- as of last week, at least -- Sarah Palin was the Republican best positioned to emulate the tactical model employed by Barack Obama in seeking the Democratic nomination in 2008. Remember that Obama did not begin as the first choice of party insiders or as a "front runner" in horse-race polls. Our trend estimate of vote preference results showed him as the choice of less than 20% of Democrats in late 2006. But Obama started with a real base, a core of true believers that showed up in big numbers whenever Obama gave a speech.
During 2007, the nascent Obama campaign discovered a new model for fundraising and field organizing. They learned they could mine Obama's big crowds for small donations (by selling tickets), In so doing, they obtained the email addresses of their most ardent supporters who they could re-solicit at low cost and channel into a grassroots organization. Thus, although Obama was never a "front runner" in national polls during 2007, his campaign was able to raise $129 million that year, remaining competitive with Clinton and building a small donor/grassroots army that ultimately overwhelmed Clinton in 2008 in dollars and (what turned out to be) all-important efforts to turn out supporters in caucus states.
So the point is this: The Pew numbers show that Palin's base as of June 2009 was as strong as Obama's on the eve of the 2008 campaign. Consider two numbers: Palin's "very favorable" rating last month on the Pew Research survey among all adults was 15%. Obama's very favorable score among all adults on a Pew Research survey in August 2007 was 14%.
As such, it is not completely crazy for Palin want to free herself from the time and travel constraints imposed by her gubernatorial commitments in Alaska.
And then he pulls the plug:
Now...go ahead and un-suspend your disbelief. The parallels between Palin and Obama end there.
Palin and Obama are very different in many ways, but the most important are about political judgment and their approach to their biggest perceived weakness.... [T]here is no question that Obama aimed from the beginning to use his Senate seat broaden his perceived experience, especially in foreign affairs. Palin's resignation takes her in an opposite direction.
Also, while Obama made the most of his base, his campaign always focused on the much larger electorate they knew they needed to convert to win. Moreover, while "change" was clearly the central overarching theme, the Obama campaign worked at key moments to indirectly reassure voters about his readiness for presidency. These efforts included a constant drumbeat of testimonials at key inflection points in Obama's standing during the campaign....
In contrast, by resigning, Sarah Palin is likely digging herself into a much deeper hole. In late October 2008, the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 55% of registered voters considered Palin "not qualified" to be president (only 40% considered her qualified). Now, Palin faces a new perceived negative. As George Will put it yesterday, "in her own words, she now is a quitter."
It's called "perspective". As Yogi Berra would say, "You could look it up."
Maybe there's a good reason to think Ron Paul is a nutcase for for yammering on about the gold standard as if it were a magical cure-all. From Brad De Long:
Maybe Frank Ricci isn't the best person to testify against Sonia Sotomayor after all. Seems like Ricci was for "special rights" before he was against them, Talking Points Memo reports:
| Ricci is a firefighter who sued the city claiming reverse discrimination in 2003 after officials there discarded the results of a firefighter's promotion test after the test was revealed to have a disparate impact on blacks and Hispanics.
But flash back, if you will, to January 25, 1995, when, according to the Hartford Courant Ricci was singing the opposite tune: "A decorated firefighter has filed a lawsuit against the city, saying he was not hired because he is dyslexic."
....Ricci, a Wallingford native who now lives in Maryland, was one of 795 candidates who were interviewed for 40 openings. Ricci told interviewers that he has a learning disability, the lawsuit says.
Fire commissioners have said that although Ricci was qualified, many others also were qualified because they passed the Civil Service examination.
Two years later, that case was resolved. "In a confidential settlement, struck two years later, Mr. Ricci withdrew his lawsuit in exchange for a job with the fire department and $11,143 in attorney's fees."
If you were Frank Ricci, you might say something like, "Frank Ricci got a job and somebody who wasn't dyslexic didn't." Remember, this is the same Frank Ricci who took his reverse discrimination suit all the way to the Supreme Court, where lower court rulings against him--including one by Sotomayor's Second Circuit--were overturned.
Ricci will testify against Sotomayor before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week--this despite the fact that his views on jurisprudence seem to begin and end with the proposition that legal protections against discrimination are great when they work in his favor, and unconscionable when they don't. |
Eat your heart out, ~Joe The ~Plumber. That's the way a real pro gets the job done!
Maybe Robert McNamara just reincarnated as General Stanley McChrystal. The Washington Post reports (h/t VLaszlo in Quick Hits):
U.S. General Sees Afghan Army, Police Insufficient
Obama Strategy May Need More Funds, U.S. Troops
By Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the newly arrived top commander in Afghanistan, has concluded that the Afghan security forces will have to be far larger than currently planned if President Obama's strategy for winning the war is to succeed, according to senior military officials.
Such an expansion would require spending billions more than the $7.5 billion the administration has budgeted annually to build up the Afghan army and police over the next several years, and the likely deployment of thousands more U.S. troops as trainers and advisers, officials said.
In standard reincarnation theory, one can only reincarnate from one body into another body after the death of the first body, and before the birth (if not conception) of the second one. However, there are other theories. The Russian mystic Gurdjieff taught that souls reincarnation backwards through time--though only after enormous psychic effort--since reincarnating backwards was the only way one could undo the karma of past acts. And E.J. Gold, author of The American Book of The Dead taught that reincarnation happens constantly, all the time, whether we are aware of it or not. The perception that one exists continuously in a single body is an illusion, he taught. According to Gold, there are four stages of the human lifecycle: birth, life, death and transit, the stage between death and reincaranation. But one can actually slip into transit at any time.
In fact, the introduction of the original edition of the book was the major source material for the Talking Heads song "Once In A Lifetime", which David Byrne and Brian Eno said at the time was drawn largely from random samplings of radio broadcasts in New York City, where the intro to Gold's book could well have been read on the air at WBAI, or some other radio station. The passage:
"And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful Wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?"
Is part of Gold's description of how one can slip into transit, and reincarnate into the middle of some other life. Normally, of course, this happens so fast one never notices it. But you never know. McNamara? McChrystal? Psycho Killer? Burning Down The House?
Maybe you've got something of your own to add? |
