Losing the 60th Seat

Imagine if the ghost of Election Future told Teddy the day after the '08 election that he would die soon and that the fate of health care reform depended on the results of the special election to replace him. I'm quite sure the lion of the Senate would've slammed down a scotch in celebration (or equivalent)!

It is absolutely remarkable how the Democrats have revived a completely disorganized, dysfunctional political party. It really comes down to the "economy stupid". Three major mistakes were made by the Obama administration and the leadership of the Democratic Party:

1. pushing health care ahead of economic reform, including financial regulation;
2. trusting that Keynesian economics work; and
3. realizing, because of the branding efforts by the Obama Presidential campaign, voters projected their own interpretations of him, and often times with radical different results.

Obama and his campaign made a very conscious effort to prevent the brand of Obama from becoming labeled by traditional political definitions. Although he had a perfect liberal rating as a U.S. Senator and was known for advocating rather liberal beliefs such as expanding the rights of Americans to health care and other social justice issues, he avoided being categorized as a traditional liberal through advocating for a "realist" foreign policy, a more efficient, results oriented approach to government services, charter schools and praising Ronald Reagan.

While this was a brilliant campaign strategy that was incredibly effective, it was extremely vulnerable once public policy was made and the vision of brand Obama was clarified by American voters. This vulnerability was further compounded by, frankly, the arrogance of the Obama administration. We saw this after Iowa, when team Obama was overly confident about New Hampshire. This overconfidence led to numerous mistakes and nearly cost him the nomination.

I would speculate team Obama became enamored of their poll numbers early on and sought to strengthen the depth of positive sentiments towards Obama by continually keeping Obama front and center of the media cycle. What ensued was overexposure. Press conference after press conference, announcement after announcement... it was soon all Obama all the time... even more that it would already naturally be as the first minority President that was the hope of saving the country from the previous administrations seemingly disastrous policies.

Furthermore, this overexposure was compounded by an apparent supreme confidence that his policies would turn around the economy and unemployment rate. This is where mistake #2 enters.

In many ways Obama is extremely fortunate to even be where he is at right now. Imagine if that jihad advocating cat from Nigeria had actually succeeded in blowing up that plane during the holidays. Obama's rating would be in the low 30's and next November would be a complete bloodbath at the polls.

At the end of the day I'm still quiet stunned how Obama managed to destroy so much of the good will he accumulated with the American people.

Small, but Needed Step, to Greater Government Transparency

In a significant step towards greater government transparency -- and how our taxpayer dollars are being spent -- the stimulus bill requires government agencies to report disbursed monies via an optional RSS feed.

For each of the near term reporting requirements (major communications, formula block grant allocations, weekly reports) agencies are required to provide a feed (preferred: Atom 1.0, acceptable: RSS) of the information so that content can be delivered via subscription.

Real time reporting of how money is allocated will provide advocate organizations greater ammunition to push for a more effective, productive use of government resources -- and our tax dollars. I fully expect this development to create a few firestorms in the blogging world... which will consequentially be covered by radio, broadcast and print media outlets.

Hat tip: Steve Rubel

The Audacity of Hope

The triumphant victory of Nicolas Sarkozy in May 2007 over the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal was suppose to be a template for the GOP to keep control of the White House. Clearly it did not quite work out like that. While Sarkozy was able to distance himself enough from Jacques Chirac, McCain could never really distance himself from Bush due to concerns over losing the core religious conservative vote. Big mistake on team McCain, yet that is ancient history.

Per Ben Smith's blog at Politico, Royal is now claiming credit for Obama's victory.

"Yes, I inspired Obama, and his team copied us."

Really? Smith goes on to state "she claims that Obama learned the uniquely French concept of 'win-win' from her campaign." Now that is truly audacious.

I understand why foreign politicians are acting like teenage groupies at a Led Zepplin concert trying to connect their brand to Obama -- he is incredibly popular right now -- yet this is ridiculous. Segolene, the reason you lost is because your ideas are tired, they will not work and the French public -- even though they are incredibly liberal and pro big government -- did not trust you to turn around the economy.

A little advice Segolene... you should worry more about your credibility as a public official and developing competent public policy ideas more than demanding "credit" for Obama's victory. Just saying...

Join Sarah 2012

It has begun. Sarah Palin has started a political action committee -- a significant step to running for national office. The thought of this woman running our country and the free world is truly a terrifying thought. If nothing else I hope the Democratic Party and "progressive" interest groups learned their lesson from the years of George W. Bush... namely do not dismiss a political rival as stupid and expect enough Americans to agree with you that the individual is clearly not competent enough to hold the office of POTUS. A 2004 election of Obama vs. Palin would be absolutely entertaining. Not only would Palin fill the national void left by Bush 43 of embarassing comments made by elected officials (although Biden is trying his damnest), a loss worse than McCain's would further damage the credibility of the religious right as a viable ideology for the GOP.

Symbolism of Change

Image of the Naval Observatory (residence of the VPOTUS) found on Google maps prior to January 18, 2009.
Image of the Naval Observatory (residence of the VPOTUS) found on Google maps January 18, 2009.
Not to get to caught up with the symbolism of change and a new commitment to transparency from the office of the President of the United States... Although Obama might secretly be wishing that Biden would spend as much time in undisclosed locations as Cheney did in the role of VPOTUS after events such as this.

- Thanks for pointing this out to me Kaner.

First Break with the New Administration

So apparently Obama is routing for Pittsburgh to win the Super Bowl. Makes since as Pennsylvania is far more important electorally than Arizona and Pittsburgh's owner, Dan Rooney, switched sides to support Obama in the general.

As a Cowboy fan I simply cannot route for a team that threatens to pull one Super Bowl championship ahead of us for the NFL franchise lead in Vince Lombardi trophies. Although Kurt Warner absolutely killed me in the championship game of one of my fantasy football leagues I hope he has one more outstanding game left in him.

Obama Reaches Out to Muslim World

Who would of guessed that the first television news network to score a personal interview with President Obama would be Al-Arabiya? The Saudi Arabian cable news network with an audience of 23 million in the Gulf region landed a huge get today with a wide-ranging interview discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Al-Qaeda and America's relationship with the Muslim world.

Although Obama is not going to magically repair lingering distrust, hatred and suspicions Muslims have toward the West, today's interview was certainly a positive first step. It is nice to actually watch an interview our President provides to a foreign news outlet and not cringe knowing he is the face of America to the world.

More Change I Can Believe In

I'm pleased to read one of Obama's first acts in office was to sign an Executive Order requiring the closure of Girmo within one year. Much to my pleasant surprise Obama went further than expected by declaring:

The Order also prohibits reliance on any Department of Justice or other legal advice concerning interrogation that was issued between September 11, 2001 and January 20, 2009.

A solid first step by Obama to demonstrate his committment to civil liberties and the constitution.

The Arrogance of the New Yorker

Some random thoughts for a beautiful Sunday in Los Angeles.

1. Just imagine the media cycle if the July 21 cover of the New Yorker was on the National Review, or Weekly Standard. Do you think the response would have been the same? Doubtful to say the least.

2. Oh the arrogance of New York liberals, thinking that this cover will help Obama's image versus reinforcing ridiculous stereotypes held by many in the country. I imagine many will cancel their subscriptions of the weekly after this debacle. So why would the outlet do it? To force Obama to the left... doubtful. Probably just complete sheer arrogance... at the cost of subscriptions and a lose of respect from media observers such as myself.

3. At least the New Yorker forced the McCain campaign to agree with the Obama camp on something. This has been a pattern of the McCain campaign, following the media cycle versus leading it.

It truly baffles me why McCain did not use the period between early February through June to define Obama in the terms that suited the GOP. Following in the footsteps of a President with less than a 30 percent approval rating, one would think McCain would realize he would have to run a near perfect campaign to claim the Oval Office. However, instead of setting the November election on terms favorable to the GOP, McCain had a completely disorganized campaign message and team... and even took off most weekends from the campaign.