Gillibrand and Bruno

Friday was a happening day politically in the Capital District of New York state. On one hand, there was descent. A federal grand jury indicted former state Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno on felony charges alleging he used his elected position to extract $3.2 million in private consulting fees from clients who sought to use his influence. Joe, who represented an area east of Albany for a number of years has his name on the relatively new minor league ballpark in Troy, among other things. I freely admit to experiencing a bit of schadenfreude over his fall, and it’s based on a connection I’m just not going to get into just now; maybe someday.

The other story was an ascent, one you might have heard about, even out of state or out of country: Gov. David Paterson picked Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to the U.S. Senate, succeeding Hillary Clinton, who resigned after her confirmation as Secretary of State in the Obama administration. One of the out-of-town headlines read: “Little-known, pro-gun Democrat gets Clinton’s Senate seat.” I thought it was unfairly reductivist, so for the benefit of those of you not the Albany area, a primer.

The Congressional District east and south of Albany, currently the 20th, was gerrymandered to sustain a Republican member of Congress. While the adjoining 20th (where I live) contains the Democratic-leaning cities of Albany, Schenectady and Troy, the vast 20th, largely rural and small towns was a GOP delight. The Congressman there for 20 years was the late Gerald Solomon, who was very conservative. He was succeeded in 1999 by John Sweeney, similarly conservative – he helped George W. Bush in Florida in 2000 – but a bit of a party animal. He was seen as drinking at a college frat house, e.g.

Still, when Kirsten Gillibrand challenged Sweeney in 2006, she was not given much of a chance to defeat him, such was the nature of the district. Then there were allegations of possible spousal abuse in the Sweeney household. This probably sealed the seat for Gillibrand.

The best time to knock off an incumbent is after his or her first term in office. The GOP candidate in 2008 against Kirsten Gillibrand was Sandy Treadwell, who is quite wealthy. I started seeing his ads – it’s the same media market – months before I saw hers. Yet she won the general election with 62% of the vote.

A successful Democrat in a conservative district, who was able to do some meaningful fundraising, became one of the front runners for the Clinton seat. Here’s a dichotomy in the narrative. When Gov. Paterson announced her at the press conference, he said that she was picked because she was best qualified, not because she was a woman or from upstate. Yet Gillibrand’s new Senate colleague, Chuck Schumer of Brooklyn said at that same press conference that it was important that the selection be a woman because there are only 16 women in the Senate. He added that it was also important that the candidate be from upstate, something that hasn’t happened in 38 years, because upstaters can speak better to the needs of upstaters. (I discussed the odd, complicated upstate/downstate tension here.)

Kirsten Gillibrand is no wide-eyed liberal, but she’s no hick. My wife suggested I not write this, but write it I must: she’s no Sarah Palin. She’s descended from political royalty in these parts, She received her first experiences in Albany politics from her grandmother, the legendary “Polly” Noonan. City of Albany politics, because it’s been one party for so long, engenders a certain conservativeness, a complaint about Gillibrand that she attempted to quell.

“I will represent the many diverse views and voices of New York state,” said Gillibrand, adding that she would work with Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, a Long Island Democrat who has criticized Gillibrand’s A rating from the National Rifle Association. “I will look for ways to find common ground between upstate and downstate.” On December 7, 1993, McCarthy’s husband Dennis and five others were killed, and her son Kevin and 18 others wounded on a Long Island Railroad commuter train by Colin Ferguson.

The New York Immigration Coalition also suggested now-Senator Gillibrand must reconsider her positions on immigration. During her tenure in the House, Representative Gillibrand took positions on immigration that are deeply troubling, to say the least. She sponsored legislation that sought to require local police officers to take on immigration enforcement duties, even though police chiefs have testified it would impair their ability to protect the public. She strongly supported throwing more resources toward ineffective border enforcement, but appeared to oppose any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Simply put, these are positions that put her at odds with the majority of New Yorkers, whose values reflect our state’s history of welcoming immigrants, as well as with President Barack Obama, who supports a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

I could be wrong, but I think, as a statewide representative, she’ll be more liberal, if only because she’ll have to be to get the nomination. On the very day Gillibrand was named to the Senate seat, Carolyn McCarthy vowed to challenge Gillibrand, directly or indirectly, in the 2010 Democratic primary. The seat will also require candidates in 2012, when Senator Clinton’s term would have been up.

Here’s an interesting perspective in the New York Times about the whole process of naming Hillary Clinton’s successor:
Now that Gov. David Paterson of New York has completed his operatic quest to fill Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat and Roland Burris, chosen by the embattled Illinois governor to succeed Barack Obama, has made it past Capitol Hill security, we can safely conclude that appointing senators might not be such a good idea.

Actually, Americans came to that conclusion in 1913, when the 17th Amendment mandated regular senatorial elections…

The very problems the amendment was meant to address persist. Consider this: Nearly a quarter of t
he United States senators who have taken office since the 17th Amendment took effect have done so via appointment. Once Representative Kirsten Gillibrand, Mr. Paterson’s choice, joins the Senate, she will be one of more than 180 senators named by governors since 1913.

By contrast, the Constitution mandates special elections for all vacancies in the House — even though representatives are far less powerful than senators.

Yet only a handful of states routinely fill vacated Senate seats by special election. The result is a tyranny of appointments.

Not so incidentally, the race for the Gillibrand House seat will have at least three well-known Republicans, including the wealthy Sandy Treadwell, whose ads netted him 150,000 votes in 2008, but only a couple unknown Democrats. The seat will almost certainly go back to the Republican column. It may be better for Gov. Paterson, who’s up for election in 2010, to have an upstate woman on the ticket running with him than to worry about one House seat. Moreover, New York will lose one, maybe two Congressional seats in 2012, after the 2010 Census, and the map, drawn by the state legislature, currently controlled in both houses by the Democrats, might well gerrymander the district out of existence.

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The business of Billary

I had an a-ha! moment in Chicago after attending a workshop on family-owned businesses at the ASBDC conference. Family-owned businesses are often dysfunctional, because the role in the family is not made distinct from the role in the family-owned business. The instructor used the example of the business owned by dad and/or mom with the children/employees expected to come to Sunday dinner every week, where the conversation would inevitably devolve into talking shop. The people providing the jobs and the people providing the meal are exactly the same, so the family dynamic interferes with the business dynamic, and disaster often follows.

It occurred to me that two of my favorite TV shows involve family-owned businesses, and the dysfunction that it brings, both on ABC: Brothers & Sisters and Dirty Sexy Money. The former is about a guy who owns a produce business; he dies in the first episode, and the succession plan doesn’t always go as he planned, with his elder daughter in charge, much to the resentment of at least one of his sons and his brother-in-law. In DSM, the protagonist tries and fails to stay out of the family businss that his late father worked in but gets sucked into the bizarre family/business dynamic.

One conversation that was taking place at the conference was whether Bill Clinton, supposedly insightful politician, regardless of your political view of him, intentionally sabotaged his wife’s campaign for President, One woman said, “How could he not have?” Here’s my theory; there is this company called Billary. Going back to the late 1970s, its mission was to elect Bill Clinton governor of Arkansas, then later, POTUS. So, by necessity, Bill was CEO of Billary, Inc.

Then it was Hillary’s turn to run things. Except that Bill was used to being the CEO of Billary. Heck, he was used to being “leader of the free world”. So while he may have really tried to cede authority to her, the old business dynamic, mixed with their…complicated family dynamic, got in the way. In an ABC interview in August, Bill Clinton said as much, responding to attacks on his wife as a husband, rather than as a surrogate for the candidate.

In many situations, such as when a new department head is chosen at a university, what the former chair does affects the outcome. When the retired one sticks around in some emeritus status, some of the staff will continue to him or her. Whereas when the older one slips quietly into the sunset, that issue doesn’t arise.

So, I’m convinced that Billary didn’t work in its quest to nominate Hillary as President because it was a dysfunctional business. Moreover, I think Barack Obama did not choose Hillary to be his running mate because he did not want to be tied down to that broken dynamic.

Top photo (c) 2008 by Mary Hoffman
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My Ambivalence About Bobby Kennedy

I first realized that I didn’t much like Robert F. Kennedy when he decided to run for the U.S. Senate from the state of New York in 1964. There were three overriding factors:
1. I had heard that the FBI was bugging Martin Luther King, Jr., and I felt that as U.S. Attorney General, he was responsible.
2. We had a perfectly good moderate Republican senator in Kenneth Keating, in the Jacob Javits tradition. I know some of you are too young to remember moderate Republicans. They existed. Really.
3. I had read a syndicated column in the morning newspaper in Binghamton, the Sun-Bulletin, where William F. Buckley compared RFK to a “carpetbagger”. Of course, his own brother, James, would move into New York, to run for and win a Senate seat in 1970; the tradition continued with Hillary Clinton in 2000.

BTW, I was 11 at the time. I was a political junkie, even then.

As it turned out, Bobby Kennedy won the Senate seat. Satirist Tom Lehrer quipped that Massachusetts then had three senators. Ken Keating ended up on the state Court of Appeals, which, despite its name, is New York’s highest court. (Whereas the Supreme Court is a trial court; go figure.) He then served as a US Ambassador, first to India, then to Israel.

Move to 1968. Eugene McCarthy runs against an incumbent President and gets 42% of the vote versus 49% for LBJ in the New Hampshire primary on March 12. It’s only then that Bobby Kennedy gets into the race. Commentators at the time declared that Kennedy used McCarthy as a “stalking horse” against Johnson, and I tended to agree. LBJ’s declaration that he would not run came at the end of March. This was followed on April 4 by the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., which ultimately had a profoundly moderating effect on my world view.

I woke up the morning of June 5 to see the results of the California primary, only to hear the news of RFK’s shooting in Los Angeles; he died the next day. I knew many people who were deeply affected by his loss. I too was at a loss, though. While I certainly didn’t wish him ill, I wasn’t having the same sensation, and I was feeling pretty guilty about it. Yet, as I watched the days of coverage, seeing people lined the railroad tracks as the train carrying his body went by, somehow I started to emphasize with what those folks felt.

A few years later, Tom Clay, a radio disc jockey, born in Binghamton, but by then working out of Los Angeles’ KGBS, put together this very odd song, melding the Bacharach-David song “What the World Needs Now” with the Dion hit “Abraham, Martin and John.” I’ve written about this record before, even putting it on as the last song on a mixed CD. The song starts off rather cloyingly, with Clay asking children about prejudice and segregation, and them having no idea, then segues into soldiers preparing for the Viet Nam war. Next, reports of JFK’s and MLK’s death, with this comment by Bobby Kennedy about the latter: “No one can be certain who next will suffer, from some senseless act of bloodshed.”

Then the record uses what I believe to be the audio tape of reporter Andrew West of KRKD, a Mutual Broadcasting System radio affiliate in Los Angeles, who also provided a blow-by-blow account of the struggle with the shooter Sirhan Sirhan in the hotel kitchen pantry, shouting at Olympian Rafer Johnson to “Get the gun, Rafer, get the gun!” and telling others to “get a hold of his thumb and break it, if you have to! Get his thumb! We don’t want another Oswald!” (Not so incidentally, I was watching the television 4 1/2 years earlier when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot.)

The next thing heard is Senator Edward Kennedy, eulogizing Bobby: “My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.” Ted Kennedy’s voice cracks during that section, and my own pain, largely missing at the time, except as a supporter of others who mourned, came into fruition; it gets to me every time I hear it. The remaining Kennedy brother concluded his eulogy, by quoting George Bernard Shaw: “Some men see things as they are and say ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?'”

In retrospect, I think that Bobby Kennedy was transforming from a cool, calculating politician to a more truly compassionate man, and I mourn his death now far more than I did at the time.

Here are the lyrics to the song.

The YouTube video, which may not be historically accurate. I swear it’s David Brinkley’s voice I hear when Walter Cronkite is on the screen.

Oh, and like so much in this campaign, I thought the Hillary Clinton “gaffe” re: RFK’s assassination was a non-issue.

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May Ramblin'

Black Television News Channel (BTNC) announced plans to launch the nation’s first all-news cable network dedicated to the African American community. That was sort of interesting; more intriguing to me was this: “Based in Washington, D.C., BTNC is the creation of J.C. Watts, the former Republican congressman from Oklahoma.” I figured that if Hillary Clinton somehow won the Democratic nomination, and I suppose it could still happen, the Republicans would counter by putting a black conservative Republican on the ticket. Actually, I was specifically thinking J.C. Watts. Guess that’s not going to happen.

Speaking of McCain, take the Bush-McCain Challenge, an online quiz to see if you can tell the difference between George W. Bush and John McCain.

And, as I said, Hillary’s not dead yet, but the funeral’s been planned: In Loving Memory of the Hillary for President Campaign.

Is everybody happy? Well, no, and age, gender and race seem to be factors. I suppose a story like this – E-Mail Shows Racial Jokes by Secret Service Supervisors – while disturbing, doesn’t fill me with as much outrage as it used to, maybe because I’m less surprised than I used to be. I appreciate whimsy more, e.g. Czech crash victim wakes up speaking English. And maybe I can laugh a little at myself more. This is a thread for label suggestions for a homebrew called Old Librarian Ale. BTW, I am NOT responsible for the content. The NSFW item (clearly labeled within) REALLY is NSFW.

So always remember, and never forget: Nothing is more dangerous than a wounded mosquito.

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Barack and Hillary QUESTIONS

When I was on vacation in Virginia this past Sunday, I turned on the TV and happened to catch the last 45 minutes of Barack Obama’s Q&A with CNN on religion/faith/values. I thought he seemed most impressive and comfortable; I didn’t see Hillary Clinton. Then I catch the local news tease asking if the Dems have a “prayer” of dealing with faith issues. The story itself noted Clinton’s and Obama’s “struggle” talking about religion (in general, it was implied) and then showed the clips of Hillary and Barack talking about abortion (she said that the potential for life began at conception, Barack noted that he did struggle with this particular issue).

It seemed that abortion is still THE issue when it comes to matters of faith, at least according to that broadcast. A related issue in the media also seems to be that the Dems are FINALLY talking about religion in 2008, when, in fact, John Kerry for one was, I thought, quite eloquent in speaking about his faith and how he acts on it in a 2004 debate; since he didn’t talk about it often, and because he didn’t oppose abortion, he was perceived as somehow inauthentic.

So my questions:
1) Did you see or hear any of the Clinton or Obama pieces on race? If so, what did you think?

2) Regardless of whether you actually saw them, what was your perception of how they did based on what you read in the newspaper or heard on radio or TV? I’m interested in sources of your info, too, if possible.

3) How SHOULD candidates be talking about faith and religion, if at all?

4) I also caught much of the ABC News debate on Wednesday, and I thought they both were fine. Mostly it reminded me that either of them is a better choice than John “not so straight talk” McCain, who had ducked the faith debate. Did you see the Wednesday debate, and what did you hear about it, whether you saw the debate or not?

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Roger Answers Your Questions, Jaquandor

Jaquandor, who kindly plugged Ask Roger Anything asks:

1. List at least three movies that you love despite the fact that the world has united against them in abject hatred.

You mean like your love of Titanic? Initially, I was really hard pressed to think of one. OK, I did consider one, Continental Divide, with John Belushi and Blair Brown. The critics I read at the time savaged it. I went to Rotten Tomatoes to verify this, and what do I find? 75% positive; of course, that was only 6 out of 8 critics who liked it. Maybe it’s aged better. I have a great affection for the 1945 version of State Fair, while not pillaged (and regarded far better than the 1962 Pat Boone version), was rated only so-so compared to the 1933 version. Finally, Requiem for A Dream wasn’t exactly hated, but with its unrated status and difficult content, it’s no surprise that the 2000 film only did $2,546,851. Ellen Burstyn should have won the Oscar that year rather than Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich, though that might have been Julia’s best performance.

But then I remembered some movies I saw 30 years ago that I haven’t seen since – a 1977-78 trilogy of films of the Burt Reynolds/Sally Field oeuvre. Smokey and the Bandit, about running beer across county lines, with Jackie Gleason; The End, a comedy about bungled suicide, with Dom DeLuise; and Hooper, about a stunt man. My girlfriend at the time really liked them, and I found myself enjoying them as well in spite of myself.

And how about a film that I haven’t seen in 40 years? Mark Evanier lobbied for it to be released on DVD, and it is so. The Night They Rated Minsky’s – my first movie that I attended that was rated M for mature audiences; this later became GP, then PG. I remember who I saw it with: my friend Carol (not to be confused with my wife) and her friend Judy (for whom I had an unrequited crush). I remember the songs (You Rat You, Perfect Gentleman, the title tune, plus Take 10 Terrific Girls – But Only Nine Costumes, which I know by heart) because I own the soundtrack, on vinyl, given to me by my grandfather, a janitor at a radio station (WNBF, Binghamton, NY). He got it because the station was THROWING IT AWAY. I remember the opening, done by Rudy Vallee: “In 1925 there was this real religious girl, and by accident — she invented the striptease. This real religious girl. In 1925. Thank you.” I may have to watch the DVD just to see if the film, the first one with Elliott Gould and the last one with Bert Lahr, is as much fun as the soundtrack is or as good as I remember.

2. Since I assume you do a fair share of toy shopping these days, are there any toys you see out there that make you think, “Wow, I wish I’d had that when I was a kid!” Or, conversely, are you the type to go to an antiques store with your kid, see the toys you yourself played with, and subject your kid to lectures about how much better those toys were?

She has some toys, notably her train set which is much more sophisticated than anything I had, and her cars with a track, but I don’t covet them, mostly because, generally speaking, I’ve ODed on “stuff”.
Nor do I try to force my childhood on her, though she just got a ball and bat, not exactly a Wiffle ball, but similar. I suppose some day I hope she can appreciate the wonder that is Slinky, but I guess I don’t worry about it much. She seems happy so far with her stuffed bears, dolls, books, videos, puzzles, and coloring books for now.

3. What does the entire area of New York State west of, say, Troy have to do to get Albany to realize how bad things are out here?! (By “Albany” I mean of course our state government and not people who just live and work in Albany.)

Given the bath the state government has taken over the Wall Street crisis (Bear Stearns, et al.), recognition of the problem may not be the issue, it’s doing anything substantial about it.

4. Describe something that makes you laugh deep and hearty, despite the fact that few other people think it’s funny.

Bad puns. Henhouse Five Plus Two doing In the Mood like chickens; indeed anything that is done in the style of chickens. Ode to Joy per chicken. Smoke on the Water per chicken.

5. KFC: Original or Extra Crispy? (I prefer Original myself.)

And speaking of chicken: oh, original. The extra crispy tastes like cardboard. That said, can’t remember the last time I had KFC – it was since I’ve been married but before Lydia was born.
Actually, I have a historic fondness for KFC. On or around my 19th birthday at college in New Paltz, my roommate, my girlfriend, my best college friend and some others conspired with my parents (who came with my sisters from Binghamton, a couple hours away) to have a surprise party for me. I was surprised, in part because I walked into my room and my glasses steamed up. I took off my glasses to clean them and noticed over a dozen people in my room, none of whom I could make out – is that my father over there? They brought KFC, and there were leftovers that the poor college student ate over the next several days.

6. What scares you more: John McCain continuing George Bush’s foreign policy, or John McCain continuing George Bush’s economic policy?

You seem to suggest that George W. Bush HAS an economic policy. OK, the rich get richer. But even THAT’S not working very well lately. McCain has shown no grasp of economics at all. And it’s difficult to separate the foreign/defense policy of spend without ceasing from our economic woes. OK, I’ll pick foreign policy, because if we continue to isolate ourselves, that is NOT in our national interest.
Here’s the awful thing: I think John McCain has a very good chance of winning in November. I saw a poll recently and Clinton Leads Pack in Negative Ratings; moreover, in the self-selecting poll AOL had, the results were the same:
Clinton 28% positive, 61% negative, 11% neutral Total Votes: 650,265
McCain 42, 32, 26; 604,308
Obama 38, 47, 15; 618,110
Yes, McCain is the only one with greater positive than negative ratings. Also note the vote totals; more people went out of their way to dis Hillary than Barack or John. Meanwhile, the Hillary supporters are beginning to hate Barack, and vice versa, and threatening to vote for McCain, or no one in
the general election. A huge number of women in particular will be most disappointed if Clinton loses and will opt out; likewise, Obama supporter, many young and/or black, will not embrace the former First Lady. I have a BAD feeling about this; I hope I’m wrong.

Oh, the woman in the picture: Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, who some tout as Vice-Presidential on the McCain ticket. “The first-ever woman Governor of Alaska, its youngest (44) governor, and the first to have been born after Alaska became a state. A onetime beauty queen, high school athlete, and TV reporter, Palin was elected mayor of Washila in 1996 and, two years ago, made national headlines by defeating present and past governors to win the state’s highest office.” Unfortunately, the pundits observe, Alaska only has three electoral votes and is likely to go Republican anyway. I STILL think McCain’s picking a governor or former governor as his running mate.

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Who'll Be the Veep QUESTION

My friend Deborah in France turned me on to this website where one can subtitle one’s own Bollywood movie, and then send it on to friends. Her fine example can be found here, while my attempt is located here:
http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/bt.swf
My piece, which I did on Wednesday or Thursday, after Super Tuesday, but before Mitt Romney suspended his campaign, is based on the fact that, barring a meteor crash, we in the United States will be electing as president the first person to move directly from the U.S. Senate to the White House since JFK.

So, who then, will be the Vice-Presidential candidate for:
Clinton?
Obama?
McCain?
Two parts: who SHOULD they pick? Who WILL they pick?
My thoughts:
They all need to pick a governor, or former governor. Doesn’t mean it’ll happen.
Clinton: It’ll have to be a man; I don’t think that’s a sexist observation, but a political one. The geography: someone from the South or the West. Too bad the governor of Montana doesn’t have more electoral votes to offer. I suppose it could be Senator Obama.
Obama: It should be someone with foreign policy experience.
In each case, former candidate, and current governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson keeps popping up on my list. The governor of Kansas who is a woman, and who gave the response to the State of the Union, is an Obama supporter, but two Midwesterners doesn’t seem to balance the ticket. In any case, I seriously doubt it’ll be Obama-Clinton.
McCain: I have a dollar and two case quarters that it won’t be Mike Huckabee. If the Democrats don’t put a woman on the ticket, maybe the Republicans will. And if McCain gives up trying to appease the “true conservatives” (whatever that means) who seem to hate his guts, maybe he could pick a moderate such as Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine.

Here’s a PDF of all the current governors. I’d be surprised if one of them is not on the national ticket, probably one whose term DOESN’T end in 2009.

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Buy Dave's Comic Books

“I am helping Dave Cockrum’s widow sell Dave’s personal collection of comics–from his X-Men file copies to his Silver Age and Golden Age books. Dave was an important creator, a wonderful man, and his widow can use the money… Would you help me spread the word?” — Clifford Meth. Well, since I have met Dave and Paty Cockrum once or twice, as explained here, absolutely, I will. Go here.
***
I was reading about a group called Empire State Troopers, who were featured on the cover of Metroland, the local news/arts weekly. I’m not familiar with the group, but the members, from Saratoga Springs and the Buffalo area, commissioned a friend of theirs to come up with this declaration:
“We are the Empire State because we alone have all the makings of a great empire. Coal. Grain. Timber. Iron. Granite and Slate. Livestock. Game. Fresh Water. Our per-acre agricultural output far exceeds that of any other state. We are too far inland to be hurt by hurricanes, yet too coastal and hilly to see tornadoes of any significance. Long after the world’s oil is gone, and the deserts once again are parched, we will still have our canals, our rivers and our lakes. This is our birthright, and from all this—from the hardcore squats of mid-1990s Buffalo to the North Country metal parties in July, from the explosives, the grease fires, the dog fights and homemade tattoos—Empire State Troopers make their rock.” The part about the topography IS particularly why I do like being where I am.
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Someone asked me last week: If twice something is double, three is triple, four is quadruple, etc., what is it for nine and ten? I had no idea. “Nonuple and decuple?” I guessed. Turns out I was right, and those terms are known as tuples; that I did not know .
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I think the thing that bothered me most about Chris Matthews’ remarks about Hillary Clinton was how utterly wrong his bluster was. She went to 62 of 62 New York State counties and convinced conservative Republican men and women that she could bring home the bacon to her state.
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JEOPARDY! fans: The Online Test is back! These tests are for adults 18 and over only to qualify for the regional auditions. Eligible adults must register before taking the test.
TEST DATES & TIMES
EAST COAST Tuesday, January 29th at 8PM EST
CENTRAL/MOUNTAIN Wednesday, January 30th at 8PM CST/7PM MST
PACIFIC COAST (Including Alaska and Hawaii) Thursday, January 31st at 8PM PST
Registration will close at 7:30PST on Thursday, January 31st. Visit jeopardy.com now to register, take the online test tutorial, and read through all instructions and information.

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Hillary and the New York Post

Let me be very clear about my biases here. I HATE the New York Post. My disdain for it goes back to the Summer of Sam in 1977, when the paper indicated, in screaming red letters that the killer had been caught. More egregious, though, was when some photographer slipped into the NYC morgue in December 1980 and took a picture of the deceased John Lennon, a photo that the Post, in its infinite taste, published on the front cover.

So when NewsCorp, a/k/a Rupert Murdoch, bought it a few years back, it only solidified my disdain for the rag. Though to be fair, its sports coverage is decent. Understand that I don’t actually READ the paper; those headlines are generally enough. And on those rare occasions when I HAVE read it – usually an abandoned copy on a bus – my suspicions about the newspaper’s character, or lack thereof, are confirmed.

I’m not a great fan of Hillary Clinton. Sure, she was wrong on the Iraq war, but my disdain actually predates that. I didn’t vote for her in 2000 or in 2006. I think part of it is that she’s one in a line of carpetbaggers who came into New York State merely as a matter of convenience, so that they could run for the U.S. Senate. Remarkably, the last three were actually elected: Robert Kennedy in 1964, James Buckley (brother of William F., who had denounced RFK six years earlier for the same reason), and HRC in 2000.

Still, the vitriol that she engenders is astonishing to me. They hate her because she’s too tough. They hate her for using Rodham in her name. They hate her because she didn’t leave Bill over Monicagate. They hate her for reasons I’ve heard explained and STILL don’t understand. It almost seems that she has personally insulted them, the way many right-wing magazines and books have keyed on her. I mean, she’s not my pick for President, but yeesh!

And among her nastiest, and most persistent, critics is the slimeball tabloid New York Post, which seems practically obsessed with her, based on these newspaper covers from successive days (January 3-8, 2007). Other New York State papers cover the Presidential campaigns; the Post covers it largely in relationship with the fortunes (or misfortunes, so they hope) of “Hill” (rhymes with Bill). I read a story some months ago about her in the Post. The details now escape me, but it was clearly opinion, and negative opinion at that, posing as a “news” story.
So, when she cries, or almost does, one can practically hear the Post editors smacking their lips. “Hill cracked! We got to her! She’s going down!” But a funny thing happened: Hillary won in New Hampshire. And according to this piece, and others, it was BECAUSE she cried, or almost did. She allowed herself to be “real” and the voters, especially the women voters, responded.

And, peculiarly, I was glad she won in New Hampshire. Anyone denying that there is this sexist double standard isn’t looking very hard. The man can cry and be sensitive yet manly and Presidential, but the woman who cries is probably “in a tizzy” and can’t be trusted with heading the government. This is the balancing act Hillary Clinton has been trying to maintain for a long time, but letting her emotions show seems to have helped her, at least for one day.

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The Candidates QUESTIONS

This is an audience participation thing, or as Frank Zappa once put it, “enforced recreation.”

1. Go to http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html and answer the questions, but leave your intensity about the issues at Medium.

2. Cut/paste and send me the results (or post on your blog, and let me know in the comments section.)

3. Re-vote, but this time, indicate the intensity of your position.

4. Cut/paste and send me THOSE results (or post on your blog, and let me know in the comments section.)

Before revealing my picks, you’ll note that there is something called the Composite Candidate: “The calculator compiles the most popular responses from all voters to create a composite candidate, a candidate whose views match most with the average responses of users.”

Composite Candidate
* Delaware Senator Joseph Biden (D) – 43.48%
* Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) – 41.30%
* Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson (R) – 41.30%
* Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (D) – 36.96%
* Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (D) – 36.96%
* New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) – 34.78%
* Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) – 34.78%
* New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) – 34.78%
* Businessman John Cox (R) – 32.61%
* Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D) – 30.43%
* Arizona Senator John McCain (R) – 28.26%
* Texas Representative Ron Paul (R) – 28.26%
* Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) – 28.26%
* Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson (R) – 28.26%
* Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) – 26.09%
* Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich (D) – 23.91%
* Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) – 21.74%
* Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo (R) – 21.74%

Also, there’s a list of Most Top-Matched Candidates
* Gravel – 14.20%
* Tommy Thompson – 12.42%
* Romney – 10.95%
* Giuliani – 10.93%
* Kucinich – 10.52%
* Biden – 6.40%
* Clinton – 4.68%
* Cox – 4.47%
* Obama – 4.19%
* Hunter – 3.64%
* Dodd – 3.63%
* Fred Thompson – 2.66%
* Tancredo – 2.51%
* Paul – 2.16%
* Huckabee – 2.06%
* Richardson – 1.82%
* Edwards – 1.32%
* Brownback – 1.02%
* McCain – 0.42%

Now, here are my top selections, with no regard to intensity:
Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D) 100.00% match
Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich (D) – 94.74%
Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) – 84.21%
Delaware Senator Joseph Biden (D) – 78.95%
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (D) – 78.95%
Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (D) – 78.95%
New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) – 73.68%
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) – 73.68%
Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson (R) – 57.89%
Businessman John Cox (R) – 47.37%
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) – 42.11%
Texas Representative Ron Paul (R) – 36.84%
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) – 31.58%
Arizona Senator John McCain (R) – 26.32%
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) – 21.05%
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) – 21.05%
Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo (R) – 15.79%
Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson (R) – 15.79%

Whereas, when I add my intensity factors:
Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich (D) 96.88% match
Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D) – 81.25%
New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) – 71.88%
Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (D) – 68.75%
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (D) – 65.63%
Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) – 65.63%
Delaware Senator Joseph Biden (D) – 59.38%
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) – 56.25%
Texas Representative Ron Paul (R) – 37.50%
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) – 28.13%
Businessman John Cox (R) – 25.00%
Arizona Senator John McCain (R) – 25.00%
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) – 12.50%
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) – 9.38%
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) – 9.38%
Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson (R) – 9.38%
California Representative Duncan Hunter (R) – 6.25%
Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo (R) – 6.25%

Strange: Kucinich and Gravel, the two guys left off some recent Iowa debate, switch for the top spot, Clinton (who I’ve never voted for) moves from 7th to 3rd, and Obama falls from 3rd to 6th, but the Top 7 are still the Top 7, with Richardson 8th in both scenarios. One thing is for sure: I won’t be voting for Tom Tancredo. Or for Sam Brownback, though I’d probably enjoy hanging out with him, based on his appearances on the Sunday morning talk shows.

A curious glitch: Duncan Hunter isn’t on the first list (or on the composite candidate roster), while Fred Thompson’s missing from the second.
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“In his new book, The Evangelical President, Bill Sammon paints a riveting portrait of a president who is as committed to worldwide democracy as he is to his faith—and guided by legitimate principles that his critics aren’t willing to understand. In this far-reaching book, Sammon details:
Why Bush believes the Republicans will hold the White House in 2008″

Interesting. Haven’t read the book, probably won’t read the book, but I’m beginning to come to the same conclusion.
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Let the most popular candidate win: Instant runoff voting is simple and effective.
By John B. Anderson (1980 Presidential candidate)
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I wish we could get as 72-25 vote, condemning Blackwater, something actually under Congressional budgetary control. Anyway, MoveOn has moved from Petraeus – Leave Petraeus alone! to a much more appealing target, Rudy Giuliani:

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Pat Buchanan (!) on the hysteria that greeted the request of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to lay a wreath at Ground Zero.
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If Bill O’Reilly Was a Rapper.

ROG

ROG