Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Obama vs Edwards, speech-wise

I'm at Campaign For America's Future's annual "Take Back America" Conference. Three thousand progressives, several dozen sessions, on policy and the practical side of campaigning. And 'the candidates' are here.


Just got out of the pre-lunch session in the main ballroom, Obama followed by Edwards, each running about 30 minutes. I was a delegate to the California Dem Convention in April, and saw each of them, and all the others, there, also. But not back-to-back, not to the same craowd at almost the same time. I'm just ending a year as the president of my Toastmasters Club, and as such I do speeches or speaker evaulations several times each week. This was an experiment in style, and I tried to do a side-by-side comparison.

Obama and Edwards both have a populist style of speechifying. They tell heartwrenching stories and give absolutist pronouncements. They use the string-of-examples-in-the-same-format that develop rolling waves of applause and get the crowd on their feet. And their comfort levels,both with their material and with the crowd, are comparable, and a hge improvement over Junior's discomfort at stringing two sentences together.

But here's the most important difference I've seen so far. Obama is speaking to a crowd. Edwards is talking to each person individually. Obama is speechifying, Edwards is talking to me over the fence. Obama is sticking almost exactly to his speech, while Edwards veered off to 'today' twice, extempore. I only noticed about a one-percent diff from the April speeches in CA for either. But I felt like I was hearing Edwards for the first time, not the third, while I'd already heard Obama's speech.

Maybe this is good for Obama. He's still a new item, unlike Edwards, whom we all saw a lot of in 2004. So Obama's speech, its' 'Turn The Page' mantra sticking in people's heads, may work in his favor. He packed the largest ballroom at the Washington Hilton, literally overflowing into the foyer. Maybe 10-15% left when he did, rather than stay and hear Edwards. So there's an energy for Obama that Edwards may not have anymore. But hell, Obama may not have it either, by the time the primaries actually arrive...NEXT YEAR!

But Edwards got huge applause as often as Obama, and the two folks sitting net to me, sold on Obama at the end of his speech, were equally sold on Edwards at his finish, both repeating his take-away lines/concepts: "That's Not Who We Are!"/"We're Better Than This" after examples of Republican failings, and still-existing problems.

The GOP is envious. The Dems are suffering from a wealth of riches, candidate-wise. The GOP looks at their ten dwarves and weeps.

Hillary tomorrow, 8AM

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Monica gets no immunity from the GOP

Listening to Monica Goodling's immunized testimony today shows how far the Republican Party has fallen. Because even with immunity, she's living in 'I don't know'-land. And that's because there's no one left in the GOP to give her immunity from political retribution for telling the truth. If she actually tells the truth she'll never have another job. Rightfully, no Democratic-leaning operation would have her, and she'd be radioactive to any Republican-connected operation, especially after the abuse Tom DeLay's "K Street" project put them through. And there is no respectable, ethical faction left in the Republican Party, willing to accept the fact of the crimes of this Administration and others in the administration of the current Republican party.

It's a damning thing that the government's immunity can be trumped by the oath of Olmerta taken by members high and low in the criminal operation known as the GOP.

Monday, May 07, 2007

How and Why Regulations Are Born: An Evolution Lesson

Republicans always whine about all these laws and regulations that keep them from being able to ignore everyone but themselves. The correct response is,"Because we tried it without those regulations, and you and your friends almost killed or bankrupted us, that's why." And because they didn't live through the world as it was before those regs, and because they have the imagination God gave a salt shaker, they don't get it.

So let's watch it happen all over again, in a whole new arena, for the same damned reasons it ever happens: greed, collusion and theft. I'm talking about the widening Student Loan Financing disaster. We relied on the ethics of the financial officers and boards of the universities. We relied on the integrity of the bankers. We were fools, again. They took our trust and literally laughed all the way to the bank, leaving teenagers, teenagers!! holding the bag. One is my youngest niece, who starts college this fall.

As always, add a pinch of Bush-Crony Incompetence. Jon Oberg, a high-ranking staff researcher at the Dept of Education reported on federal subsidies supporting loan-pushing collusion back in 2003 and recommended action to stop it. Two different Secs of Education, both Bush loyalists from Texas, told him, 'Go work on getting us some grant money. We have no power to change the situation.' Then add a dash of Congressional Oversight, when, in January, faced with a suddenly-Democratic Congress, the Dept of Education ended these subsidies...with a single letter to the lenders. And began an investigation.

This is the cycle that creates regulation: a small problem becomes larger, comes to the attention of experts, who warn the players, who ignore the warnings because 'it's not illegal, so the morality is irrelevant'. When it finally comes to the attention of the general public, first they rear back in horror, then they rise up in anger, and demand that the law match their sense of fairness.

This is one way Democrats are created.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Apocalypto Redux

Sometime today, like an Aztec king sharpening the dagger he'll use to remove beating hearts from living subjects to appease the gods, Junior will announce the need for more sacrifice, in the name of burnishing his name.
He'll sacrifice our military, not just our soldiers.
He'll sacrifice our reputation, not just his.
He'll sacrifice our dreams, not his fantasy.
He'll sacrifice our future, because he has none.

This sacrifice will be made by the soldiers he sends to the slaughter.
This sacrifice will be made by their families, whose hearts will be ripped from them, in many cases forever.
This sacrifice will be made by their children, who will spend their lives and their childrens' lives paying for the privilege.

This sacrifice will not be made by the 'haves and have-mores' who are the king's base.
This sacrifice will not be made by American industry, which continues to build gas-guzzlers and video games, instead of electric vehicles and solar panels.
This sacrifice will not be made by you or me, who will find all the gas we want at the corner station.

What a relief that he told us to go shopping instead.
Got your Christmas gift cards?
Let's go!