Opening the Day: Economic Gloom Deepens, Palin's Expensive Wardrobe

by: Matt Stoller

Thu Oct 23, 2008 at 07:30


It's going to be a busy day, with the GOP sleaze hitting so fast and furious that there is literally just too much interesting and outrageous stuff to post.  Our Better Dems page has expanded in keeping with the incredible moment we're in, you guys have helped us bust through $42k, and our traffic on the site is going gangbusters.  This is a once in a lifetime election, where we really can pick up random seats that no one's paying attention to.  So please give, let's make this happen.

Goal Thermometer

We're gunning for $50K.  I threw in some money for Josh Zeitz last night, we've got a bunch of new candidates on the Better Democrats page, go check 'em out.  Now's the time to build our generational majority.

  • The HuffPo profiles the candidates for Treasury Secretary.

  • What the hell is Karl Rove doing speaking at the mortgage bankers convention?  Comparing notes on fucking up the country?  Speaking of which, Karl Rove just mentioned Pennsylvania as a place where they cling to their 'guns and their faith', on Fox News.  I'm sure the outrage-o-meter will begin any.  Second.  Now.

  • I'm on a podcast on Horse's Ass with David Goldstein.  If you want to hear an hour of Stoller and co, go for it.

  • Lovely.

  • Here's a video warning about climate change in 1958 that is dead-on accurate.  Wow.

  • McCain has no ground game.  At all.

  • CEPR takes on IOUSA.  Lots of letters, probably the most important item in Opening the Day.

  • Job losses are accelerating.  Get ready for an ugly retail season followed by layoffs.

  • Palin will finally release her medical records.  Not so much John McCain.

  • The Florida GOP is limiting voting, again, through malice and incompetence.  I remember in 1994, when Jeb Bush ran for Governor and got his ass kicked.  It was a Republican year all over the country, but his campaign had the dumbest fucking bumper stickers ever: "Jeb!"  I was all of 16, but I remember that campaign in Miami.  I didn't really care about politics but even then I hated the Bush's.

  • This campaign season will cost more than $5B.  Sounds like a lot?  Come on, this is a $10T economy.  We just bailed out banks for $700B.  We probably spend four times that on ice cream every year.

  • Chuck Todd argues McCain and Palin have no chemistry.  Not sure I like punditry like that, even when I agree with it.  I know people love him, but I find Chuck Todd kind of irritatingly conventional.

  • Network news is shedding viewers even in an election year.  I wonder if those numbers include streaming on the web.

  • Hedge Funds lost $180B so far this year, and it's only a $1.7 trillion industry.  That means lots of funds going under, redemptions, etc.

    In recent years, public pension funds, foundations and endowments poured billions of dollars into these private partnerships. Now, in the midst of one of the deepest bear markets in generations, many of those investments are souring.

    Nonprofits, schools, etc are going to take a big hit.

  • GOP donors are mad Palin's spending their money on clothes.

    "As a Republican Eagle and a maxed-out contributor to McCain's general campaign, I'd like my money back - he can still have my vote," complained one irate donor on Tuesday.

    "I'm not one who says a candidate shouldn't wear fine clothes," he added. "I'd just like to think they were successful enough in the private sector to have afforded their wardrobe with their own money, not the party's or the campaign's, which is really our money as contributors."

  • Barbara Lee is going to fight to remain chair of the progressive caucus.

What are you reading?
Matt Stoller :: Opening the Day: Economic Gloom Deepens, Palin's Expensive Wardrobe

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Opening the Day: Economic Gloom Deepens, Palin's Expensive Wardrobe | 15 comments
Sarah's Shopping (0.00 / 0)
Whatever happened to Pat Nixon's "good Republican cloth coat"?
global warming video (4.00 / 1)
well, what damage could 50 years of inaction possibly do? ;)

@#$%#$#W%#$%@#%@#%#@%@%#@#%#%@

Had seen that global-warming video… (0.00 / 0)
...as a kid in elementary school back in the early '70s. Those two guys were in a whole series of fine youth science films. Some I didn't even sleep through. Wonder if anyone has compiled them.

"This ain't for the underground. This here is for the sun." -Saul Williams
It was directed by Frank Capra! (4.00 / 1)
Did you notice that? The greatest "progressive media" creator (as Bowers might put it) of the 20th century. Funny, that.
[ Parent ]
Barbara Lee is going to fight to remain chair of the progressive caucus (4.00 / 2)
If I were a member of the progressive caucus, I'd require some pretty hefty justification for preserving the status quo. They wield a larger bloc of votes than the Bush Dogs, but progressives are completely ineffective in using that leverage to push progressive legislation. As in, it seems like they haven't even considered the notion.
Progressive Caucus--Woolsely, Not Barbara Lee, Co-Chair, Not Chair (4.00 / 2)
Not sure how you misread the linked info, Matt, but it's Lynn Woolsey who's changed her mind and decided to run again for co-chair of the caucus.  The Roll Call link is subscription only, so here's the story from The Hill:

Woolsey reverses, will seek leadership of progressives
By Mike Soraghan
Posted: 10/21/08 07:28 PM [ET]

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) has changed her mind and will seek another term as co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Woolsey explained her decision by saying the group needs continuity. The caucus is already losing current co-chairwoman Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who will become chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus next year.

"I reconsidered the idea of not chairing the caucus and leaving it without the continuity and leadership I can bring," Woolsey said.

In September, Woolsey had said it was time for "some new people in leadership."

Woolsey announced her reversal in a brief e-mail to caucus members, saying she would send a more formal letter later. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) has also reportedly sent a similar memo expressing interest in leading the caucus. Attempts to reach his office for comment Tuesday were unsuccessful.

Woolsey said she wants to continue the two-person structure of the committee she chaired, explaining, "I'm running for co-chair."

....



"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3
Wait (4.00 / 2)
that article says Woolsey will seek to be co-chair again, right? Not Lee.

I'm hoping Keith Ellison runs for and wins the co-chair position.  

John McCain: Beacuse lobbyists should have more power

$5 Billion (4.00 / 1)
Per the link, the cost of the Presidential election is double what it was in 2004 and triple what it was in 2008.

The candidate who accepted public funding is being vastly outpaced by the one who didn't.  

This is a bad development for the public financing system and a horrible development for the United States.

But, because it benefits today's corporate conservative candidate, it's just fine apparently. It doesn't matter that, despite ever increasing expenditures, voters have trouble deciphering the basic facts about either candidates policies from their ads and the media.  Instead, the escalation just results in more and more sound bite ads, more false charges and countercharges. It is a monumental waste.  Voters could be well-informed and mobilized for far less than the total expenditure of 2000.

So much for principles.  

$5,000,000,000 Wasted (4.00 / 1)
I will not support public financing of elections until the cost is brought waaaay down.  Start by minimizing the length of the campaign. I don't see why they need any more than 1 month to campaign before the conventions.  How many of YOU can take 2 years off from your current job to interview for your next position?  It is ridiculous.

Public TV and radio can handle the weekly debates, so they don't need to pay for air time.  Does the President have to pay for the time they get for the SOTU?  I, for one, could do without the inane TV ads that populate my TV every day.  Complete. Waste.  

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
HuffPo's list for SecTreas is Lame (0.00 / 0)
Perhaps some lame establishment pick will be what's necessary to keep the markets calm. Among those listed, I'd prefer Corzine, who at least is vaguely progressive.

But where the heck are candidates like Robert Reich?

Speaking Truth (0.00 / 0)
Mike Murphy, the excommunicated chief strategist of McCain's 2000 campaign and a longtime friend and adviser blogs some talking points to spin the $150,000 pantsuit:

1.) What you sneering critics in the liberal MSM fail to see here is... a Jobs Program! Saks floorwalkers, cashiers, a team of sweating porters to haul the merchandise from the store to the motorcade... chiropractors to treat those porters. Sarah Palin knows how to create jobs!

2.) What's the difference between a Pit Bull and a Hockey Mom? You can feed a pit-bull for 483 years with 150 grand.

3.) Still cheaper than Mitt Romney's hair products. We're saving money here...

4.) William Ayres is a terrorist!

5.) New ad slogan: "Clothes for Gov. Palin? $150,000. Time machine to go back two months to late August and ask what the Hell were Schmidt and Davis thinking when they cooked up this idea and sold it to McCain? Priceless."

In humor there is truth.

Zing the Bling...  

the Chuck Todd from the primaries was the exception (0.00 / 0)
I know people love him, but I find Chuck Todd kind of irritatingly conventional.

During the primaries Todd was one of the few in the MSM that had a good grasp of the delegate process and provided accurate assessments of where the primary race stood and realized that Obama's string of February victories all but shut the door to Senator Clinton rather than it being a deadheat. However during the general election his news desk is one of the few remaining ones still clinging to the fiction that Obama has less than 270 electoral votes today. I guess it was just a fluke that he was insightful during the primaries. Now he just pulls stuff like the idea that Obama will lose 70% of the undecided out of his ass in order to create the impression that it is a close race.

isn't it sad to say Joe the Plumber types are not (0.00 / 0)
contributors, when the actual Joe is a contributor.

Honestly, while I appreciate the Center's work on making FEC data avialable, every available piece of data suggests that politicians were no more honest and corporations had as much power in the 80s and 90s as any other time period.  Campaign finance reform is nothing but a sham.



New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

ICE SCREAM (0.00 / 0)
From the international ice cream assoc.

In 2006, total U.S. sales of ice cream and frozen desserts reached nearly $23 billion. Of that total, $8.9 billion was spent on products for "at home" consumption, while $13.9 billion was spent on "away from home" frozen dessert purchases (scoop shops, foodservice and other retail sales outlets.)

Matt underestimated our ice cream purchases, they are nearly 5 times as much as the election campaigns, not 4.

Morning in America? Pencil in 2010 (0.00 / 0)
The previous four recessions all lasted from 22 to 25 months and all started during a Republican Administration.  Since we seem to have one underway, pencil "morning in America" for the summer of 2010, spring if we are lucky.  (source: www.recession.org/history)
Opening the Day: Economic Gloom Deepens, Palin's Expensive Wardrobe | 15 comments
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