Dreaming of Carlyfornia

Mike Bloomberg and Mark Warner are two examples of wealthy business executives who have had electoral succes, but it is not always that easy- ask Al Checchi or Mitt Romney. I know Mitt was the governor in Massachusetts, but this is not a man who has successfully transitioned to politics:




Dubya Bush was a unique case- a constant business failure who ended up having electoral success. 
Carly Fiorina just might be in a class of her own. Here's how HP stock fared during her tenure as CEO:

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Carly "helped John McCain by saying things like Sarah Palin couldn't run a major corporation (considering what a great job Carly did, that is really saying something).


Now Carly's running  for the US Senate in California. Her campaign website has been rightfully described as the worst campaign website ever:





Earlier  this week Carly rolled out her new attack video targeting Tom Campbell. 




 So many questions:
- Where did they get the wanna-be Morgan Freeman narrator?
- Which sheep are the ones we should aspire to be?
- Did Carly herself play the demon sheep?
- Did anyone know that there was such a thing as a demon sheep before this ad?
- How much did they pay the the demon sheep?
- Did they use their own animals or have to tell a rancher that they were creating a demon sheep political ad?


The good news is that John McCain thought she did a good job as CEO:



Meg Whitman will need to kick it up in order to keep pace with Carly.

Bernanke

Paul Krugman has a good piece on why he is grudgingly supporting Bernanke's reappointment as the chair of the Fed.For me, knowing that hooker aficionado  David Vitter, John McCain and Jim Bunning oppose Bernanke is probably enough to get me to support him.

Bernanke is getting equally attacked from both the left and the right- in this case, he is about where he should be. In retrospect, the Fed did a horrible job of understanding the financial catastrophe that was developing in 2007 and 2008. Highly leveraged banks, the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, lack of regulatory control, CDOs run amok, etc.- the entire federal government failed to intervene in any type of meaningful way.

However, starting in September of 2008, Bernanke has been incredibly aggressive in trying to avert another depression. He vastly expanded the role of the Fed and that was vital to saving our financial system. He's currently keeping the Fed rate at zero in order to continue stimulating the economy.

My guess is that he'll get between 65 and 70 votes to continue as the head of the Fed.

More teabaggery

Maverick John McCain is going to have a primary challenger in 2010. Former Congressman J.D. Hayworth thinks that McCain just doesn't breathe enough fire so he'll try and replace him.  Apparently, the myth of moderate Maverick John McCain exists even within the Republican party, not just with the Washington press corps.

The moderate McCain vanished in about 2003 when he realized that there was no presumptive heir apparent for President Bush. Suddenly, McCain stopped attacking the Bush tax cuts and started embracing them as just the sort of thing we needed. Of course the highpoint of his embrace of Bush was...his embrace of Bush.

There was speculation that McCain would return to his alleged moderate roots after both he won the GOP nomination in 2008 and after he lost the general election.  Especially after his loss to Obama, there were rumors that he'd become an elder statesman and try to work with the new President. Instead, McCain is trying to make opposition to Obama the centerpiece of his reelection campaign with quotes like: "I stand in his way every day."

One upside of Brown's victory (even though it is mostly downside)  in Massachusetts is that it has embolden the tea party contingent to attack their own. Much like the Republican infighting in NY-23 helped Bill Owens win, primary battles like this one in Arizona and the gubernatorial battle in Texas will hamper GOP efforts to create a landslide in 2010.

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?

Better late than never: McCain prepping economic plan

Well, I'm sure he wishes he had thought of it back in 2008 before the election, but apparently John McCain is now working on an economic plan.

And there is no man I more want to hear an economic plan from than the guy who had so many houses he couldn't remember how many he had, and who thought the fundamentals of the current U.S. economy were "strong".

Obama as economic leader

The NY Times profiles Obama as economic steward of the nation: Now Mr. Obama is building a case that an era of Republican dominance has bequeathed a set of problems that demand a more active government capable of restoring fairness to the American model of democratic capitalism.

One reason I have confidence in Obama is based on how his Presidential primary campaign was run. He appointed a strong group of people, assigned tasks and then held them accountable. Considering that his two major rivals for the Presidency, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, both had campaigns that went broke, I'm glad we have the person who actually managed to pay out bonuses post-election because he had a surplus (special note: don't expect to see that word very often) from his campaign funds.

The scary alternative

Here's who could have been in charge of the economy right now:




Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!