State of the Union

Obama is like Michael Jordan back in the day- when the money is on the table, you just know he'll rise to the occasion. Every time he has needed to come up huge- 2004 keynote, Jefferson Jackson dinner in Iowa, Rev. Wright, 2008 nomination acceptance- he's done it. The SOTU was a home run- it struck just the right tone between bipartisanship and rallying the base.

Things I especially liked:

- Acknowledged that health care had been tough and that it wasn't politically easy
- Challenged anyone else to come up with a better way of fixing our system (and I really don't know how anyone can argue with a straight face that it doesn't need to be fixed).
- Don't ask, don't tell- gone this year- it is about time
-  Laid out facts that have been obscured- not a single American has had their taxes raised, millions of people received a tax cut with the stimulus package

Aftershocks

Losing Ted Kennedy's Senate seat is a blow- no way around it, but it is not the worst thing to ever happen. Time to start looking at the silver linings.

1.)  In many ways, 60 was the worst number of Senate seats for the Dems while keeping a majority. It is the exact number needed to end a filibuster, but it required keeping people like Lieberman and Ben Nelson in the fold. Jon Stewart said it well: Bush did whatever the f$#$ he wanted with a much smaller majority. Time to either start passing things with 53 votes or have Republicans hop on- no more selling of the soul in order to placate Joe Lieberman.

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2.) Much better to get the wake up call in January than in November.  During the primary campaign, the Obama team stuck to their game plan and didn't get worked up by the fact that critics were flipping out about Hillary Clinton, McCain's "Celebrity" ad, Palin, etc. Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod are pretty damn smart and politically attuned-  good people to have in charge of the campaign operation.

3.) People are angry, but not just at the Democrats. Brown ran a great campaign, but the GOP as a whole is still viewed negatively by the electorate. Maybe Brown becomes the shining star of the GOP because the alternatives still suck- Palin, Romney, Steele, Rush, Beck, Cheney- yikes.

Let's not wet ourselves quite yet. And yeah, I'm the same person who said this.

Iowa versus the American Revolution

It is cool being in DC exactly two years after Barack Obama won the Iowa caucus. I've been reading David Plouffe's book about the campaign and it strikes me what long odds the campaign faced. The notion that a first term Senator named Barack Hussein Obama could beat Hillary Clinton was regarded by many as laughable. The two things that stood out to me about why Obama won the nomination:

1. The unbelievable grassroots movement that was galvanized by online tools such as MYBO.com and Facebook.

2. The discipline, intelligence and cohesion of the Obama campaign team. A stark contrast to the people surrounding Hillary's campaign- she was a really good candidate (especially after Iowa) but the campaign structure was a disaster and really let her down.



After checking out the Smithsonian American History Museum, I wondered which was more unlikely- Barack Obama becoming the President or a ragtag group of soldiers defeating the mighty British Empire?

Back

Sorry, it has been been a long time. I can count on Lamar! Alexander to inspire me to write again- he's comparing President Obama with Big Dick Nixon.

Apparently, he doesn't like the fact that the White House has inconveniently pointed out that Fox News isn't really, you know, a "news" channel. Lamar! wants the White House to idly sit by while President Obama is repeatedly demonized by Fox. Not gonna happen, Lamar!.

Probably a bit rusty on posting, but hoping to get back in the swing (and maybe my distinguished co-host Jon will be enticed back to posting as well).

Wonder why there is a gender gap?

Over the weekend, the First Couple (sans children) flew up to New York and had dinner
at a Greenwich Village restaurant and then saw the Broadway play "Joe Turner's Come and Gone". Since apparently Jon and Kate didn't have any big updates on the status of their marriage, the Obamas' date night got a fair amount of coverage.

Some genius over at the RNC decides that this is an issue they can attack the popular President on. “As President Obama prepares to wing into Manhattan’s theater district on Air Force One to take in a Broadway show, GM is preparing to file bankruptcy and families across America continue to struggle to pay their bills,” RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said.

My guessing the strategy meeting went something like: The American people like his handling of the economy, foreign policy, his Supreme Court pick.....uhmmmmm, let's attack him for taking his wife out to dinner and a show.

Now some husbands might feel a bit sheepish that their offers of NetFlix and Chinese take-out are looking a bit pale in comparison, but does the RNC really think this one is going to stick? On haircuts (see Bill Clinton and John Edwards), Dems might be vulnerable. But I'm guessing not a lot of women are going to fault Obama for getting all dressed up, flying up to New York for a romantic dinner and Broadway show." The only possible negative fall out for Obama might be when husbands start to hear: "Why can't you be more romantic and treat me like Barack treats Michelle?"

Sotomayor

President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, appears to be a home run. Despite a few stumbles (Daschle, Bill Richardson), the Obama team has put forth a solid string of nominees for top positions. I'm still taking a wait-and-see approach on Treasury Secretary Geithner, but can't think of another pick that I've been disappointed in.

It's kind of funny seeing the Republicans try and muster up a rational argument for opposing Judge Sotomayor. President Bush the Elder first nominated her to be a federal judge and she's been approved twice by the Senate. Maybe they will come up with something really witty, like the Hispanic equivalent of Magic Negro....Rush, our eyes turn to you.

Politically astute Dems? It's like the West Wing has come to life!

For all you Toby Ziegler and Josh Lyman fans, President Obama's nomination of Utah Republican Jon Huntsman to become the new Ambassador to China is an inspired choice. By all accounts, Huntsman is extremely qualified- fluent in Mandarin, former Ambassador to Singapore, former deputy US trade rep, etc. But he's also the guy that former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe singled out as being the most worrisome potential GOP nominee in 2012. Huntsman becoming the Ambassador to China pretty much rules him out from making a bid in 2012. Two birds, one stone. Nice change from past Democratic operations that resulted in lots of stones, no birds, many bloody foreheads.

Retractions you don't expect to see

From today's NY Times on the Pope's trip to Israel:

"...the German pope’s spokesman first said that Benedict “never, never, never” had belonged to the Hitler Youth but later had to issue a retraction."

I'm sure you could have gotten really good odds in Las Vegas years back on "Next Pope would have been in the Hitler Youth at one point". Probably the same odds they would have given you on "Black guy with Arab name and crazy preacher" being the next Preisdent.

Obama sneaks out for a burger

Last month Brian noted that the First Lady had snuck out of the White House for a burger, and I couldn't help but notice the President doing the same today. If there is a story involving the nexus between politics and hamburgers - Brian and I are on it! You are talking about two guys that tried to volunteer for the Mayor McCheese campaign. I don't care what anyone says, the man was framed.

Anyhow, here is Obama's burger run. Watch him ordering - its the most professional I've ever seen anyone order a burger. And I've watched a lot of people order burgers. You would think he was answering a question about counter-terrorism policy in a debate from the tone. I'm sure deep down he was just happy Biden didn't make some accidentally racist statement, before tripping over the counter and into the food.

Is Obama tough enough? - Part 2

Lately, the GOP has been stepping up their attacks on Obama for being "weak" on foreign policy, criticizing him for shaking hands with Hugo Chavez, and for what they saw as Obama "apologizing" for America's past actions during his trips abroad. We've seen the attacks come from the usual array of right wing elected officials, former officials, and pundits. It's not a new line of attack, throughout the whole 2008 campaign they argued Obama was too soft on foreign policy and military affairs. Indeed its the same argument they have been making against Democrats for decades. And its often been successful for them politically (just ask Presidents Kerry or Dukakis - oh, wait), so its no surprise they are trying to slap the label on Obama as well early in his Presidency.

Personally, I'm not bothered by Obama shaking hands with a foreign leader we oppose. Nor am I upset that Obama admits that America has not been perfect, even as we are a force for good in the world. These are minor symbolic acts. It's a sign of America's strength as a world power that we can deal with people we oppose, and admit when we are wrong. We aren't a petulant teenager - we are the world's most powerful country, and an example to the rest of the globe.

Bush isolated North Korea and Iran, called them both evil, and refused to talk to either country until late in his administration where he began to engage North Korea. Where did that show of "strength" get us? North Korea restarted its weapons program under Bush's watch, withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and successfully tested its first nuclear weapon. Iran spent 8 years rapidly accelerating its own nuclear program and is now far closer to having the ability to create nuclear weapons. Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, held four summit meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev - a man he once claimed ran the "evil empire". These direct talks with our long time enemy produced, among other things, the INF treaty which reduced intermediate nuclear and conventional missiles. Reagan shook hands with a man many saw as an totalitarian dictator, yet parlayed the talks into achieving goals that he wanted for the country. Bush shunned regimes he (rightfully) despised, and both North Korea and Iran spent 8 years accelerating their nuclear programs. It's not a sign of weakness to negotiate, any more than its a sign of strength to refuse to. As John F. Kennedy said in his inaugural "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate."

At the end of the day, results are what counts. If Obama ends up harming U.S. interests by negotiating bad deals with Venezuela, and getting suckered by Hugo Chavez - then he should be rightfully criticized. But for shaking the hand of a foreign leader at an international summit? Please. Because we all know that Republicans would never shake hands with anybody our country dislikes or finds distasteful (see picture above).

Imagine for a second if John McCain had been elected President in 2008. Now imagine that in the first couple of months President McCain had increased the number of troops in Afghanistan, slowed the pace of the drawdown in Iraq from what the left had been demanding, increased the military budget by 4%, kept on Bush's Secretary of Defense, approved predator drone strikes on Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, refused to retroactively prosecute those in the CIA who had tortured Al Qaeda suspects, and authorized a successful Navy SEAL operation to kill Somali pirates and rescue captured Americans. The right wing pundits would be besides themselves talking about what a strong President McCain turned out to be, and how muscular his foreign policy was. But of course it was Obama who did these things, and since he is a liberal Democrat he is therefore "weak" on foreign policy and the military.

Is Obama tough enough?

I think the graph speaks for itself. (from glass tumbler)

The Obama reelection guarantee

OK, maybe it is a tiny bit early, but I'm going to go ahead and guarantee that Obama will be reelected in 2012. Since his reelection is a foregone conclusion, it makes it all the more enjoyable to watch the positioning for the GOP nomination. That nomination will be about as appealing as a tuna sandwich that's been left out in the sun for 8 hours.

So why am I so confident of the inevitability of Obama? The single biggest factor in a President's reelection is how the economy is performing. Let's take a quick look at the recent history:

1972- Nixon imposes wage and price controls that create an artificial, temporary prosperity. McGovern gets trounced.

1980- Jimmy Carter faces an economy so bad that they create a new term "stagflation". Hello, Ronnie.

1984- After coming out of the 1982 recession, Reagan's combination of tax cuts and increased spending creates a booming economy...and massive deficits. Mondale's famous, ill-advised pledge to "tax you bastards back to the Stone Age" is a huge hit in Minnesota, D.C. and...nowhere else.

1992- George H.W. Bush manages to take his 90% approval ratings in 1991 and still lose to Bill Clinton because of the recession.

1996- Clinton rebounds from the GOP landslide in 1994 and remain in the White House because the economy was just starting to boom.

2004- George W. Bush gets his first win in a Presidential election (still not letting Florida go) in 2004 because a) John Kerry was a complete tool and b) people generally felt OK about the economy.

Based on economic cycles, I think we'll be on the upswing in 2012. If we don't see the economy get better in the next four years, then I don't care if my Internet prediction looks foolish- no one will be able to afford a computer or electricity so it won't matter.

Furthermore, Gingrich, Romney, Palin, Jindal- not really seeing a big winner out there on the horizon.

Only ways I can imagine Obama losing:

Leaves Michelle for Lindsay Lohan
Hires Michael Vick as a dog trainer for Bo
Doesn't listen to Jack Bauer's advice

Where we at?

A new poll came out that shows more Americans are thinking the country is getting back on track. It seems like things have stabilized over the last couple of months. People are starting to think the worst may be over, but no one is rushing out and buying a new Escalade.

The single biggest thing President Obama has done to stabilize the economy is to project that he knows what he is doing. The American people aren't expecting things to be fixed overnight, but they want to know we are generally heading in the right direction. McCain lost any chance he had of winning the election when he kinda/sorta "suspended" his campaign. No one, including McCain, seemed to know what he was doing. I shudder to think how bad things might be right now if McCain were President.

Do you think things are better now or are we just in the eye of the hurricane?

ASU not going to give Obama an honorary degree?

ASU was really not going to give Obama an honorary diploma when he speaks there because he didn't have an appropriate "body of work" yet?!

Setting aside for a second the irony of Arizona State (ranked #121 by U.S. News and World Report) telling a former Harvard Law Review President that he doesn't meet their high standards, just what exactly are the requirements for an honorary degree? Did Obama not take enough honorary units? Fail to declare an honorary major by the deadline? I thought the whole point of an honorary degree was that you didn't actually have to do anything. I just hope this doesn't impact his chances of getting into a good honorary graduate school someday.

The good news is apparently ASU has taken so much flak for this, they are reconsidering their position and now seem likely to grant the honorary degree after all. But this, combined with the recent controversy over Obama giving the commencement speech at Notre Dame, makes me wonder just when honorary degrees became such a political hot button?

The President gets around

The NY Times has an interesting article about how the Obamas are much more out and about than any of their recent predecessors. Bush was very much a homebody and liked to go to bed really early, but even compared the Clintons, the Obamas are very active on the social scene.

I imagine one of the most difficult things about being President is that you become so insulated. Think back to Nixon and LBJ- the longer they were in office, the more paranoid and detached from reality they became. Back in 1992, George H. W. Bush was viewed as being very out-of-touch. His campaign visit to a grocery store just reinforced that notion and it is part of why he lost the election.

It certainly helps a politician if he or she is viewed as being someone that voters can relate to. One of the reasons that Bush "won" two national elections is because he was viewed as more likeable than Bush or Kerry- the magical concept that he was a guy you could share a beer with.

I'm curious to see if Obama continues to get out and about later in his term. Can't imagine that the Secret Service is a huge fan of this, but let's hope that Obama continues to break out of the White House fishbowl.

Protesting Obama at Notre Dame

President Obama will be giving the commencement speech at Notre Dame and some folks are all riled up about it. For example, the Chicago Tribune quotes this young lady:

"In many ways, the president does not have a whole lot in line with the mission of this university, especially in terms of its Catholicism," said Mary Daly, president of the campus Right to Life club. "People look to this university as a leading example of American Catholicism."

Perhaps Mary's parents can ask for a refund of her tuition. I'd be pretty upset if I'd spent 100k on my kid's education and they displayed such an intolerant, sheltered view. The whole point of college is exposure to new ideas.

I felt the same way when Bush went to schools to speak. I disagreed vehemently with his policies, but I agreed he had a right to speak and felt that the President of the United States should be treated with respect.

Thoughts? Should universities only invite non-controversial speakers for commencement? And how many of those are there? Even Bill Cosby is controversial now!

Social media

One of the big stories of 2008 was the convergence of politics and social media- blogs, Facebook, Twitter, texting, etc. Barack Obama was the biggest adopter of these new tools and they were part of his success. The MyBO network was the central hub for his volunteers to connect with one another. Even though there were some technical glitches, his announcement of Joe Biden via text garnered a ton of publicity and cell phone numbers.

Politicians are trying to recreate the Obama magic in the next election cycle. The biggest question is: How much of Obama's success was because of social media and how much of social media's success was because of Obama? Will politicians who lack Obama's rhetorical gifts be able to inspire people to organize online?

Fast Company has a really interesting article about Chris Hughes- he has the dual distinction of being one of the founders of Facebook and being an integral part of Obama's online operation. One snippet:

It was Hughes's instinct for satisfying Facebook's users, ironically, that would lead him beyond the site. In the fall of 2006, as midterm elections approached, Facebook took the then bold step of allowing political candidates to set up modified profile pages, well before celebrities and products could have fan pages of their own. When a freshman senator from Illinois came knocking, it was Hughes who provided the customer service. Barack Obama wasn't a midterm candidate, but he wanted a Facebook profile anyway. The approach came in an email from Reggie Love, Obama's now famous body man. "I liked the Facebook idea," says Jim Brayton, then the senator's Internet director, "but Reggie really got it immediately." After Love set up the profile, Brayton says, they realized its potential for an Obama presidential campaign. "We quickly wanted to be able to do more with it. Chris got it right away."

Another example of the growing importance of technology in campaign's is visible in my own Congressional district. Ellen Tauscher will be stepping down to take a job in the State Department. The presumed favorite to replace her is State Senator Mark DeSaulnier. The only other person on the Dem side that I know for sure is running is Adriel Hampton.

I'd never heard of Adriel until a couple of days ago, but he is pretty well-known in some of the progressive politics circles. From what I can tell, he seems like a Twitter fanatic: http://twitter.com/adrielhampton

If Twitter and Ning are going to be the cornerstones of his campaign, I'm curious to see how effective his campaign can be. He's a huge underdog to Sen. DeSaulnier so he will need something to be a game changer. From what I've seen, his Twitter posts primarily consist of asking for cash and publicity- we'll have to see if he uses it to flesh out his platform.

GOP Senators complain - right on cue

Well, that didn't take long. Just a day after Coach K's barb, GOP Senators Alexander and Cornyn jump in on the "Obama shouldn't be doing an NCAA bracket" nonsense.

Alexander continued: "But he picked North Carolina and he caused the Duke coach, our Olympic coach, Coach K, to say, respectfully, you might be spending less time on the brackets, Mr. President, and more time on the economy. I think that's what we'd like to see, with respect."...Texas Sen. John Cornyn took a much harsher tone Thursday in a floor speech, saying that Obama might want to spend less time making basketball predictions and more time filling the many job openings still at the Treasury Department.

Right, because how long does it take to do an NCAA bracket? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? It makes about as much sense as complaining that Obama shouldn't have had dessert after dinner because that's 5 minutes he could have spent doing something else. Funny how these same GOP Senators didn't seem to mind when George Bush set the all time vacation record for a President in the middle of two wars and a faltering economy.

And speaking of Coach K, Slate.com nicely sums up just what it is people don't like about Duke basketball. Lots has been written on the topic, but they may have put it best...

"With point guard and assistant-coach-in-waiting Greg Paulus getting an early start on his bench-sitting career, this squad fails to fulfill the most-irksome Blue Devil trait: the cultivation of underachievers who comport themselves like overachievers."

Coach K takes issue with Obama

Or at least with his NCAA hoops picks.

Of course that may have something to do with Obama picking UNC to win it all while having Duke losing in the Elite 8. What really got me though was this : "Somebody said that we're not in President Obama's Final Four, and as much as I respect what he's doing, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably more than the brackets," Krzyzewski told a reporter from the Associated Press on Wednesday."

I had been waiting for somebody to start with the "Doesn't he have more important things to do" nonsense, but I figured it would come from some Republican talking heads. As if he was locked in his room for the last 4 days, spending 18 hours a day trying to figure out his brackets, shouting down cabinet secretaries as they tried to interrupt with economic or foreign affairs news.

Bush refuses to criticize Obama

Bush declined to critique the Obama administration in Tuesday's speech, saying the new president has enough critics and that he "deserves my silence." Former Vice President Dick Cheney has said that Obama's decisions threatened America's safety.

It's interesting to see Cheney still playing the hatchetman and fearmonger while Bush takes a much more supportive tone toward the new administration. Not sure what explains it, but I think it may be a combination of a few things:

1) There is a certain tight fraternity among ex-Presidents, and they generally take the high road and try not to directly criticize each other (at least early on). Bush is following in this classy example. And by all accounts he was very friendly and helpful to the incoming Obama administration during the transition.

2) Bush knows how ridiculous it would look for him to be criticizing the new guy after his 8 year reign of incompetence, and just months after he dumped 90% of the world's problems on the guy's lap.

3) He can play the statesman, letting Cheney look like an ass for pre-emptively blaming Obama for any future terrorist attacks.

4) He really just doesn't care that much. He was never a policy wonk, he set Presidential vacation records, and may truly just not be interested in debating economic and foreign policy any more. The last few months in office he looked like a guy who just couldn't wait until it was over. Which, coincidentally, was the look 80% of America also had.