Completely Unnecessary

I promised to write a (brief and recent) history of political ties, but haven’t the time tonight.

Instead, lest you think my prognostications false, check out the neck decor on Obama and Biden tonight at the convention:

Biden and Obama

Also, check out Bill Clinton, who is sporting the same trademark Obama light blue - no one is stepping on the nominee’s power turf:

Bill Clinton at the Convention

I’ve never seen Bill Clinton wear a tie that color; doesn’t really look that natural, does it?

If I had to guess, I would say that Obama will probably switch back to casual, hope-y blue for the next couple of weeks, but he’ll be wearing red for the debates - and a brighter red at that.

I’m really not sure what he’ll wear tomorrow though; depends on the tone of the speech. If they think Biden was enough of an attack dog tonight, probably blue - if they need Obama to throw some punches, then red.

Don’t you wish we had more colors than red, white and blue in the US? Who could go wrong with a nice kelly green?

Tomorrow -  a deconstruction of the 2004 candidates’ wardrobe choices. We do it to the women all the time; but both Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton looked great (as did Pelosi), so let’s take potshots at the men for a change.

ps - anyone know what time Obama is speaking tomorrow (and timezone please)?

Vaguely Related

• Obama/Biden and Power Ties
• Biden to be Obama’s Vice President

Not that I spend my time obsessively watching Barack Obama, but my impression is that he tends to favor the ‘man of the people’ blue tie. The image currently running on the website, is a perfect example:

Taken from www.barackobama.com

It’s a calming tie - a tie that says, “Come hope with me, etc.’

Even during the debates, I never saw him wear the bright red tie that we usually associate with presidential power.

But now that he’s chosen a running mate, I bet we’re going to be seeing the red ‘power’ tie a lot more often. For instance, during his introduction of Biden as a running mate:

Richard Perry/The New York Times

I bet we’re going to see a much more aggressive Obama now that he has a friendly, loquacious running mate to carry the hope. Biden’s tie is the exact color worn by Obama in so many of his promotional photos.

And lest you think I’m over-analyzing the wardrobe choices - I guarantee the Obama campaign but way more thought into those ties than I put into this post. (Though, we could say that of almost anything, couldn’t we?)

Vaguely Related

• The Ties That Convene
• Biden to be Obama’s Vice President

Well, supposedly the cat’s out of the bag. Eight minutes ago, the NYT posted that Biden’s been selected to fill the other half of the Obama ticket.

If it’s true, it’s certainly not the way Obama would have liked it to get out - Friday night via ‘people told of the decision’.

I’d actually really like it if the Obama camp pulled a big ’syke!’ on the press. That seems unlikely, though, since it would incurr the wrath of the people that Obama needs to communicate with voters.

All the buildup, though, seems rather… blah. The NYT’s Adam Nagourney’s been saying all week it’s Biden. It was supposed to be announced on Saturday, and now it’s announced by Nagourney and Jeff Zelney on Friday night instead.

It’s unclear to me if I’m supposed to be thrilled by this. (Also, if Nagourney’s paper really gets that many accolades for breaking a story that they’ve pretty much had all week.)

I’m hoping for an Obama bait-and-switch. American politics is supposed to be all drama and circuses.

I demand absurd surprises. If McCain selects Alan Keyes, I’ll vote for him.

ps - They’ve got Biden saying that Obama was ‘not yet ready’ to be president. Can’t wait to see those commercials run on loop for the next couple months. (Oh yeah, I don’t have to. Yay!)

Update- Obama’s website now has the Obama/Biden ticket up. Way to steal the Democratic ticket’s thunder, liberal media.

Vaguely Related

• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read
• Life Without Hillary Clinton

Let’s watch media priming in action, shall we?

Priming (and this is the short version) argues that the media help shape the way people think about issues - either through highlighting a particular issue or through the way an issue is presented. Essentially, people don’t use all the knowledge they know at any given time; our brains tend to travel down paths created through repetition or recent exposure.

Man, how boring is media theory?!?!

Here’s the lede from the NYT/Reuters story about the Green Party convention and nomination:

The U.S. Green Party, which captured far less than 1 percent of the vote in the last presidential election, chose former Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney as its 2008 presidential candidate on Saturday.

The most important information comes first in hard news. So, the most important thing about the Green Party according to Reuters is that its candidates and the party are wildly unviable. They do not and cannot win elections.

Two paragraphs later, this information is reiterated and expanded upon, just in case you missed it:

In 2004, the Green Party drew 119,859 votes, or 0.1 percent of the total, finishing in sixth place behind the two major parties and three other third-party tickets.

But, wait… didn’t they do pretty well once? (Next paragraph)

The party’s best performance came in 2000 when Ralph Nader headed the ticket, and won 2.8 million votes, or 2.7 percent of the total. Some political analysts say Nader, a political and consumer activist, may have drawn votes from Democrat Al Gore and helped tip the election to Republican George W. Bush. Nader is running for president again this year as an independent.

That information comes before a description of McKinney, meaning it is more important than her qualifications or fitness for the presidency.

There’s a real sense of trying desperately to fill the story out. What is this sentence about?

The U.S. Green Party says it is a partner with the European Federation of Green Parties and the Federation of Green Parties of the Americas.

It ’says’ it is? And what does this signify? We’ll never know. (Sounds vaguely un-American though, doesn’t it?)

And, lastly, we get a quote from what is clearly the Green Party press release.

It’s pretty obvious that Reuters sent no one to the convention. There’s no one quoted in the story; they don’t even use a direct quote for the spokesman in the 3rd par, as would be standard.

So this story is just a combination of a press release and knowledge the Reuters writer thought was important enough for reiteration to readers. These facts are essentially:

• The Green Party loses elections by vast margins.
• When the party does well, they siphon votes from real candidates (and we get George W. Bush)

I don’t necessarily disagree with the bit about Nader (and Jeremy will explain why I am both wrong and a bad person in the comments), but these are the facts that we are constantly told about a party that - by its very position as a third party - challenges the status quo.

Imagine if the story about Obama’s nomination in Denver started this way:

The Democratic Party, which lost the presidency in both 2000 and 2004, chose Senator Barack Obama as its 2008 presidential candidate on Saturday.

Does that sound like a party you want to vote for?

As a small, realatively unfamiliar party, the Green Party relies on the media to introduce it and its candidate to the public. The US paper of record just ran with an agency story based on a press release that says, ‘Don’t waste your vote.’

Democracy served. Or primed.

Link:
Green Party Names McKinney as Presidental Pick

Vaguely Related

• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read
• Life Without Hillary Clinton

I kind of cried a bit during the speech. But I was amongst other political dorks, so no one made fun of me.

I love the headline of the NYT, but not so thrilled with the sub! ‘First black…’?!?!?!

Vaguely Related

• The Ties That Convene
• Obama/Biden and Power Ties

I don’t really have anything to blog about. I know this will come as a fatal blow to some, but, realistically, you really shouldn’t be hitching your cart to my tiny intellectual pony. It’s for the best.

My thesis is done, which comes as a shock to the both of us. It’s finished two days before the due date, which is new. The fact that I’m not jotting down notes on the way to turning it in is truly a first.

Though I’d really like never to discuss it again, possibly the most interesting thing I found in my sample set is that, aside from advisers, all the people interviewed in regard to Clinton were women.* It’s not necessarily relevant to what I’m about to say, but it’s interesting and, really, what on this blog has ever proved relevant anyway?

Here’s The Age’s assessment of Obama’s potential running mates:

Many people in the party would like to see the two senators on the same ticket. Other names floated as possible running mates for Senator Obama include former Virginia governor Mark Warner, Virginia senator Jim Webb, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Senator Joe Biden.

Missing from this list are Janet Napolitano, the Governor of Arizona, and Kathleen Sebelius, Kansas’ bipartisan governor.

Granted Brian Schweitzer, the Montana governor’s whose name has also been floated prominently, is also missing, but… seriously - no one thinks it’s going to be Biden. As much as I love him, Biden offers the prospect of a double-Senator ticket with only the support of a small, blue state in exchange. Smart money’s on the governor of a redish state.

Interesting that Napolitano and Sebelius keep getting left out of the mainstream media’s lists, though they appear everywhere on the lefty blogosphere - and, ostensibly, in the Obama campaign.

Truth be told, I hope not to talk about women, gender, politics and the media for quite some time. If we run into each other at the bar, I know lots about puppies, the Congo and gossip. I have lots and lots of non-political dirt that I’m absolutely bursting to share. Let’s talk about that instead!

* - Notice that awkward, overly long sentence structure? It appears throughout my thesis as well.

Vaguely Related

• The Ties That Convene
• The Endorsement You’ve Been Waiting For*

Yesterday, Barack Obama told 800 Miami Cubans that he’d meet with Raul Castro and lift the bans on sending money and traveling to Cuba.

Holy hell. How did one man get so brave?

He’s keeping the embargo, but the prospect of negotiations with the island is a huge leap forward.

He either just won Florida with honesty or made sure no Democrat wins it ever again. It’ll depend on how sick Miami is of the usual pandering from the Right.

I can taste the Hatueys in Baracoa already.

Obama Pledges Cuba Policy Change [BBC News, h/t Jessie]

Vaguely Related

• McCain Attacks Obama on Cuba Policy
• The Ties That Convene

[Ed. note - I was tempted to title this 'Pat and the Politics of Positive Polarization' purely for prurient alliterative prosal purposes.]

Turns out, Pat Buchanan was once relevant (h/t Neil):

Nixon and Buchanan visited thirty-five states that fall, and in November the Republicans won a midterm landslide. It was the end of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the beginning of his fall from power. In order to seize the Presidency in 1968, Nixon had to live down his history of nasty politicking, and he ran that year as a uniter. But his Administration adopted an undercover strategy for building a Republican majority, working to create the impression that there were two Americas: the quiet, ordinary, patriotic, religious, law-abiding Many, and the noisy, élitist, amoral, disorderly, condescending Few.

The top of Page Two has the really interesting/damning stuff.

I share Wonkette’s Jim Newell’s surprise that Buchanan handed the stuff over to Packer of his own accord. Then again, he did recently come out and say African-Americans should be grateful for slavery, so maybe his mental ship has just sailed. Insane video of Buchanan on MSNBC last week led one Wonketteer to quip:

Before November, Pat’s going to drop an “N” Bomb. You heard it here first.

Oh, the things people get away with on the television.

Remember, a vote for Democrats in November is a vote against Buchanan’s Horrible Society.

Links:
The Fall of Conservatism [New Yorker]
Why Is Pat Buchanan So Angry These Days, Anyway? [Wonkette]
Programming [Wonkette]

Vaguely Related

• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read
• Life Without Hillary Clinton

To review: Cuba = tiny country with, as much as I love it with all my heart, essentially no global significance aside from its continuing ability to stand up to the US embargo.

Apparently John McCain - looking to the general - has this to say to Miami Cubans today:

“Just a few years ago, Senator Obama had a very clear view on Cuba,” McCain will say, according to prepared excerpts, then quoting Obama saying that normalization of relations would improve conditions for the Cuban people.

“Now Senator Obama has shifted positions and says he only favors easing the embargo, not lifting it. He also wants to sit down unconditionally for a presidential meeting with Raul Castro. These steps would send the worst possible signal to Cuba’s dictators - there is no need to undertake fundamental reforms, they can simply wait for a unilateral change in US policy.”

I can’t represent in words my ‘absurdity snort,’ but that’s exactly what I’ve done every time I’ve read these words.

If anything, McCain should be criticizing Obama for changing his views on Cuba - especially now that Raul Castro seems to be liberalizing the country!

For godsake, Cuba has 11.3 million people living on a tiny, beautiful, wonderful island. Their economy relies on tourism and sugar cane. The US has over 300 million. Their economy relies on… well, we’re not exactly sure anymore, but there’s a bunch of money coming in that’s being funneled to China.

Point being that since the fall of the USSR - which, to put in context, my 20 -year-old students can’t even remember - Cuba has posed exactly zero threat to the United States. The embargo and the entirety of US policy towards the island nation is based upon outdated ideas about Communist threat, pandering to the Miami block and pride.

What pisses me off the most about this story is learning that Obama doesn’t think we should lift the blockade anymore!

That being said, the embargo is probably the only thing holding us back from the horror of a McDonalds with a Malecon address, so Viva la Revolution!

Vaguely Related

• Obama Defines Cuba Policy
• Biden to be Obama’s Vice President

People assume that I’m a Clinton supporter because I’m writing my thesis on her. It took me a long time to make a decision, but I eventually came down on the side of Obama.

With Obama making plans in Iowa for Tuesday night - presumably to claim the nomination - it seems a good time to reflect on the campaign and prospects for the future.

The problem is that I love Hillary Clinton. I think she’d make a great president, which is why it’s been so painful to see her campaign struggle and wildly misjudge the electorate. She undoubtedly faced a hostile press, but seemed unable to stop herself and her surrogates from continually harming her campaign.

Yet, Kate Zernike’s short opening question in her Week in Review piece laid bare the deep sorrow I’ll feel when Clinton seemingly inevitably gives in:

If not her, who?

And how long will we have to wait?

It’s not that I think a woman will necessarily represent me better than a man - just as I resent the media for assuming I am a woman candidate’s natural constituency - but I do sometimes wonder how much of a difference it would make in the lives of American women if we had a woman president.

Might some glass ceilings be shattered? Might some laws about women’s bodies be prevented? Might this never-ending cycle of women as ‘firsts’ be broken so that it stops holding back other women who run for office?

Anyway, looks like we won’t know this year.

But for many women, whether or not they support Mrs. Clinton, the long primary campaign has left them with a question: why would any woman run?

Many feel dispirited by what they see as bias against Mrs. Clinton in the media — the “Fatal Attraction” comparisons and locker-room chortling on television panels.
…
For this reason, [Karen O'Connor] said, she doesn’t expect a serious contender anytime soon. “I think it’s going to be generations.”

Others say Mrs. Clinton had such an unusual combination of experience and name recognition that she might actually raise the bar for women.

In fact, the biggest point of agreement seemed to be that there is no Hillary waiting in the wings.

Except, of course, Hillary.

I find this article almost absurdly depressing. I feel like Clinton and I have both let each other down.

Confidential to Hillary Clinton: If we’re wrong about Obama, you come kick his ass in 2012, okay?

Links:
She Just Might Be President Someday [NYT - Week in Review]
Obama to Return to Iowa, Possibly to Claim Victory [NYT]

Vaguely Related

• NYT’s Clinton Must-Read
• Clinton: The Photographic Evidence of ‘Yaw’