Five Thirty Eight Updates!

Do you check Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight election site as much as I do? If so, here is a handy widget they just developed that you can use to keep track of all of their updates:




FiveThirtyEight.com (which stands for the total number of electors in the electoral college) is a fantastic website that presents giant and unwieldy chunks of data in ways that pretty much anyone can understand. More importantly, however, FiveThirtyEight is great because it allows you to talk like a genius. You can explain why improper party weighting makes Zogby polls unrealiable, or that Rasmussen polls should always be assumed to have a 1-2 point Republican lean, though their large sample sizes still make them the most reliable benchmark. Fun, right? If you have any sort of interest in statistics, give this site and shot. You'll never look at elections the same way again...

The Obama Strategem

There's a must-read article this morning in the Washington Post on the strategy that Obama's team put in place in order to wrest the nomination from Hillary Clinton and, by extension, the Democratic Party establishment. It's an extremely insightful look into the level of planning and long-term thinking that the Obama team had, and, by extension, the lack of an equivalent response from the Clinton team. The article also gets into some of the brilliant packaging and branding that David Axelrod (who's background is in advertising) and his team used to frame Obama and make the election one that revolved around personality and iconography (like the now-famous image below) first and foremost.In the end, don't you want the same people who found a way to pull off an impossible win running this country more than the group that didn't bother (or didn't feel the need) to plan ahead for all the possibilities and twists that might arise in a campaign? I don't mean to pile it on, but why should I believe that a Clinton team, one that couldn't even come up with the right strategy to pull off what should have been a sure-fire nomination, would possibly be able to get something like, say, Health Care Reform through Congress?

What the Hell?

It's one thing for Clinton to stay in the race even after everyone knows it over, but to start explicitly playing the race card? Maybe I'm just not cynical enough, but I really am shocked that she would stoop to such a desperate, lowest-common-denominator move at this precise stage of the game. I mean, it's one thing to play this card before Pennsylvania, or to do the subtly-racist thing like Bill Clinton did in South Carolina (i.e. attempting to compartmentalize Obama as the "black candidate" by equating his campaign with that of Jesse Jackson's in the 80's). But to say something like this now? I just don't get why she would do it or even how it helps to do anything except deeper the black/white rift that the Clinton campaign had been trying to create within the Democratic party. Are superdelegates really going to flock to her in droves because a bunch of racist white people won't vote for a (somewhat) black man?

All that being said, you've got to love the cover of this week's Time, right?

Is It, Finally, Almost Over?

Well, I can gladly admit that I was off on my predictions and that last night probably went about as well as it could if you're an Obama supporter (save for, you know, him actually winning, as opposed to basically splitting, Indiana with Clinton).

It looks like the media is starting to acknowledge what was pretty clear by the end of the February: the race for the Democratic nomination is, effectively, resolved:

A Break from Politics

For at least two weeks, at least until North Carolina brings what will hopefully be some good news, I'm going to try and take a break from politics. I'm going to try and scale back my blog reading, going to refrain from reading the New York Times (as much), and I'm even going to scale back watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

It's all just too much, and here's the main reason why: THE. RACE. IS. OVER. It's been over since March 5th. Clinton cannot win without something way, way more catastrophic than the "Bitter/Cling" controversy or the Jeremiah Wright scandal, she just can't. She won't be able to catch up with Obama in terms of delegates, she won't even have a shot at total votes after North Carolina (even though that is a completely worthless statistic because numbers are considerably lower in states that have caucuses and thus paint an inaccurate picture), and there is just no way that downticket Superdelegates in places like South Dakota and Georgia will have to give Clinton the 70% + margin that she needs to overtake him the backroom way (and that's not even mentioning the fact that if she won this manner it would irrevocably damage the Democratic party in the eyes of African Americans, college age students, etc.).

So, what I really can't bear is two more weeks where people debate non-issues like whether or not the race is actually over. Nothing else is going to change except for more gaffes and "gotcha" moments that will continue to cost the Democrats votes they won't get back in the fall. Why am I subjecting myself so passionately to a race that's over? Why don't I just hang back for a few weeks and wait for Clinton to, inevitably, step down from her pursuit of the nomination? Seriously, what new developments could I learn at this point?

So, if you need me, I'll be in my bunker watching the NBA playoffs for, oh, the next 5 weeks or so...

A Little Bitter Myself

Seriously busy the last couple weeks with apartment-hunting and doing the work of two people at my job, hence the lack of frequent or substantial posts. Still, I've been thinking a lot about Obama's "bitter" problem and the presidential race in general, so here are some thoughts for the 3 people out there that might possibly be interested:

First, in case you haven't seen it yet, here's what Obama said at a fund raiser in California that got him in trouble:

"But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothings replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

1. A classic "Kinsley Gaffe" (once again: check out Kinsley's new essay collection and you won't be disappointed) if there ever was one. We can all agree that what he said has an air of truth behind it, can't we? If it weren't, would Republicans in every state be wasting their time with issues like distracting Gay Marriage bans that district voters from the Iraq war and the economy but don't actually make anyone's life any better? We all know that he shouldn't have said what he did the way that he did, but to pretend that what he said was completely untrue or out of line is to be willfully naive (or worse). Still, for someone that William Safire himself has noted for his gift for words, I can't believe that Obama would be so careless in his use of words like "bitter" and "cling" which have such strong and generally negatives connotations.

2. The fact that H Clinton has been trying to murder him on this the last few days proves just how dangerous it is for the Democrats the longer she stays in the race. There's absolutely no way that the 80% of the Superdelegates (or so) that she needs to win will break that dramatically in her favor at this point. In addition, there's almost no way that Obama won't win North Carolina big enough to make Pennsylvania a wash. And, though every possible indicator makes it seem like a foregone conclusion that she will lose, it looks like Clinton will most likely stick around long enough to not ultimately accomplish a lot more than spending millions and millions of dollars attacking Obama and hurting his general election chances for as long as she cares to. Do I sound bitter? I think I'm mostly just tired of it and bored with that fact that there's nothing new to follow except each new Clinton attack.

3. Aren't we all getting a sick of politicians (and Obama's camp is as bad as any other) getting so "outraged" and "insulted"and "shocked" when an opposing candidate phrases something the wrong way. Obviously, the gender and racial components have taken this kind of thing to another level during this presidential campaign. The problem with this new "scandal," is that, as Marc Ambinder points out on his Atlantic blog, the issue is one of elitism, and it's a bit of a stretch for people like McCain and Clinton to frame Obama against themselves as some sort of elitist outsider.

4. Regardless, what Obama did was merely a gaffe, not a scandal. Spitzer getting caught in a prostitution crackdown is a scandal. The Teapot Dome was a scandal. What Obama did doesn't really seem to me like anything more than a case of using the wrong words to describe a phenomena (i.e. the way many working class/lower class people vote against their best economic interests because of cultural issues) that we all know exists but, apparently, have to pretend doesn't.

So, Where Do You Go For Your Fix?

There's so much political information out there, along with unbelievable doses of spin, equivocating, and bias, that there isn't one perfect spot to go to satisfy my desire for more and more political news. The key for me has been to go to a rotating list of about 15 sites that give me a good general impression of what the candidates are doing or saying and how things are being perceived. Here are my favorites, but be warned: once you go down the rabbit hole of political blogs and punditry you'll find it very, very difficult to climb back out (cue spooky laughter)...

Marc Ambinder-He keep a regularly updated blog on the Atlantic Monthly site that is both intelligent and unbiased. For whatever reason I've come to trust his opinion on the issues more than any of the others, and his site has thus become the first place I seem to go when a big story starts to break.

The Caucus-The Gray Lady's blog, offering a more substantive take on the major political issues of the day than a lot of other political blogs. What is lacks in a personal touch it makes up for with the quality of the writing.

Trailhead-The Slate take. Generally the funniest of the political blog. It was on this site that I first heard about Sinbad's distinct take on his trip to Bosnia with Hillary Clinton. Speaking of Slate, check out this article to get Jack Schafer's way-more-comprehensive-than-mine take on the world of political news.

The Page-Compiled by Mark Halperin and other Time Magazine staffers. Definitely the most Wham! Bam! Pow! of the blog, which makes the site a little hard to read at times. Still, it's probably the best place to go to find out what the absolute freshest political news is (thanks to John, my friend in the Michigan Democratic Party, for the heads-up).

First Read-MSNBC's take. I have absolutely nothing interesting to say about this site, except that I like it's perspective quite a bit and I find myself trusting everything the goateed, earnest Chuck Todd says.

The Huffington Post-A good place to go if you need an "I Love Obama" fix (which I often do) or if you randomly decide to care what Alec Baldwin thinks about the issues of the day. Still, definitely worth going to for the perspective of smart outsiders like Barbara Ehrenreich.

Political Junkie-I talk about Ken Rudin and the NPR team more than I should, but his light and fun weekly column is always a good place to stop by for a little midweek entertainment.

Those are just of few of the many, many, good ones out there. Anyone else have one they love that I'm missing?

Oh, Kwame! What Were You Thinking?

Well, he's probably still better than Marion Berry, but Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (inexplicably awarded a second term in 2006) has been indicted on charges of perjury.

You can read more about this bizarre, idiotic, and, I'll admit, occasionally hilarious story here and here. This New York Times piece about it from a while back has one of the greatest newspaper quotes I've ever seen: “This technosexual tragedy has engulfed the city in a way I haven’t seen in 30 years of doing political consulting.”

Man oh man, didn't he think people could trace text messages, or what?

Obama's Speech on Race in America

Here is the text of Obama's speech in Philadelphia this morning. I'll try to get a YouTube clip up once this becomes available.

First thought: It seems like a perfect speech, able to incorporate Rev. Wright into the Obama narrative while both denouncing and explaining the more unusual rhetorical elements in some of Rev. Wright's sermons.

Second thought: How did this all of a sudden become a big deal again? Oh yeah: nothing going on right now, 4 more weeks until the Pennsylvania primary, 24 hour news shows, let's rehash old issues and hold Obama responsible for things his pastor said years ago!

Third thought: I'm pretty sure that bringing the "race issue" into the fore (already the elephant in the room) won't really hurt Obama, at least in the primary, because most of the points he makes about change, resolution, the need to understand the wounds of the past, etc. are simply inarguable. Thus, making a speech like this allows him to take the reins and once again put himself forth as the candidate full of positive, idealistic notions about America. This is the kind of thing that I think America's want more of, enough so that he should be able to weather the brutality that has been put forth by the Clinton campaign the last few weeks.


UPDATE: Here's the video...

The Endgame Approaches

This picture seems to make clear, more than ever before, that Clinton will stop at nothing on her way to global domination. Watch your back, America!


In contrast, doesn't this seem like the kind of laid-back hipster we want to put forward as our face to to the rest of the world:

Like it or not, elections are a popularity contest and appearances do matter (there's a reason we haven't had a bald President in almost 50 years).

Of course, in the end it may not matter who wins the Democratic nomination, as they could certainly end up losing out to this guy:

(ok, this is admittedly kind of a poor excuse for a post. Once I get over the sickness that has knocked me out this week I'll get back to the kind of "hard-hitting," "incisive," and "genius-tinged" (those are the media's words, not mine) posts that you've all come to know and love.)

It's a big fat bloated primary day...

...if you're voting today, please consider this little-known candidate from Chicago by way of Indonesia by way of Hawaii by way of 15 other places:


That's right! After months of internal debate, back room maneuvering, and perfume-scented letters from the candidates, Better Chatter has decided to officially endorse Barack Obama in the Democratic Primary! We plan on spending the next several weeks throwing our considerable political capital and wealth behind him-our only hope is that it isn't too late to make a difference...

The Pod-roll

I've been woefully lagging behind on posting here the last couple weeks. Maybe it's the just a typical post-holiday hangover? Maybe it's how consumed I am with the presidential race? Maybe it's simply the fact that I'm broke right now and feeling pretty anti-social as a result.

Regardless, as I am in still in the spirit of giving, I thought that I would pass along my recommendations for the best regular or semi-regular podcasts. This is in part inspired by my good friend Todd's recommendation of the fantastic "Sound of Young America" podcast, the final nail in the coffin in terms of me not listening to any actual music on my podcast this month. It's also inspired by the fact that there really don't seem to be a lot of good places to find podcast recommendations. The itunes store itself is actually a pretty good place to go, but most everywhere on the Internet itself you'll just find ad pages posing as recommendation sites.

Anywhere, below, roughly grouped by category, are my favorite podcasts. It's worth noting that there's only one video podcast on here, as I find them to be battery killers and not especially handy on the subway. Without any more ado, here's the list...

Matters Political:

It's All Politics- I've been talking about this one for a long time now and have finally started to win some converts. Ron Elving and Ken Rudin have phenomenal chemistry as co-hosts, and the podcast not only features an excellent discussion of the week in politics, it also makes me laugh out loud at least one every edition.

Slate Political Gabfest - A smart and casual weekly podcast that similarly focuses on the week in politics. The Slate writers (John Dickerson, Emily Bazelon, David Plotz) have a lot of evident passion and intelligence regarding the political world and it makes for a very entertaining, illuminating podcast.

New Yorker: Comment - New Yorker front of the magazine stuff; especially fun whenever it features an article by the phenomenal Hendrik Hertzberg.

Matters Athletic:

Basketball Jones - J.E. Skeets and Tas are a couple of cheerful Canadians that heroically put forth a daily 20-minute basketball podcast. Very funny, oddly addictive, and a great way to catch up on the night in basketball.



The B.S. Report with Bill Simmons - A weekly podcast from ESPN columnist, Bill Simmons. Simmons, one of my all-time favorite sportswriters, has a very funny, loose podcast that is perfect for a post-work subway ride.

Daily Dish - Weekly podcast from Chad Ford, one of my favorite NBA writers. A great source if you want to impress your friends with your knowledge of obscure but up-and-coming Eastern European basketball players.

Matters Miscellaneous:

NPR: Fresh Air - Terry Gross is such an amazing host, so warm and enthusiastic, that she makes all of the Fresh Air podcasts interesting. I must admit, though, a habit of avoiding avoiding any of the Fresh Air podcasts that focus on Iraq too heavily.

NPR: All Songs Considered- Although my friend Brandon and I love to joke about host Bob Boilen's overenthusiasm and tendency to mispronounce band names, this is still very much a worthwhile podcast and has definitely exposed me to some artists I would probably never have given a chance to otherwise.

Sound of Young America - Many thanks to Todd for the recommendation here. For those people interested in comedy and it's mechanics, this podcast is absolutely essential. Jesse Thorn, "America's Radio Sweetheart," is an excellent and very funny host, and he does a great job interviewing John Hodgman, Bob Odenkirk, Michael Cera, and many, many others. I haven't played an album on my ipod it at least a week because of this podcast.

The Classic Tales Podcast - Classic short stories read aloud. In particular, check out "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," by Mark Twain.

Matters of Old/Intermittently Updated Podcasts:

"The New Yorker Festival" Video Podcast - In-depth video interviews with Steve Martin, Judd Apatow, and others.

KCRW Politics of Culture - This doesn't seem to get updated very often, but when it does it features a lot of great general-interest topics. The podcasts on the book "Starbucked" and on the KCRW music library were both very interesting.

Obama Wows Iowa (and America?)

Although I've been approaching Barack Obama's prospects with a hopeful but cautious detachment the last couple of months, last night's victory in Iowa seems too momentous (whether he ultimately wins or loses the nomination) to not be dwelled upon for a while. In particular, the one aspect of Obama that I personally find the most striking (maybe it's the ex-debater in me) is his amazing gift for always finding a way to maximize the potency of his speeches.

Even more than his strong, clear voice, the style in which he talks (see his Iowa victory speech below) is filled with classic and extremely effective rhetorical flourishes. Each paragraph seems to follow a pattern of "loud statement...louder statement...POWERFUL STATEMENT," followed by a quickly spoken, medium voiced, applause-creating closing line, much like he was a preacher giving a sermon. There are times when I half- expect him to end his paragraphs with "can I get an amen!" I was trying to think of other viable presidential candidates that use this style (and weren't actual reverends like Jesse Jackson) and the closest I could think of was that this is how I imagine William Jennings Bryan must have been when he ran for president a 100-odd years ago (though let's hope things turn out better for Obama).

Also, he also seems to have an innate ability to ride the wave of the crowd, repeating his opening words of "They said..." again and again in the speech below until everyone finally calmed down enough for him to continue. Somehow, the effect of all this is that his speeches feel serious and professional without seeming rehearsed. Check out John Dickerson's excellent article in Slate for more examples of Obama's gifts in this regard (especially the part where he says "I can't hear you!" to a bunch of college students and cups his hand to his ear, Hulk Hogan style). The overall effect creates an incredibly positive impression and makes him easily the most gifted speaker on the campaign trail since Clinton in '92.



And, just in case you've never seen it, here is part one of his star-making speech from the 2004 DNC...



Although I'll wait at least until the New Hampshire primary is over to get too excited, there's no question that the entire presidential race is lifted up and more dignified when it features powerful and charming speakers like Obama and even, in a different sort of way, Mike Huckabee. If the race somehow came down to the two of them, those would have to be the most entertaining presidential debates of all time, right?

Random Political Thoughts...

After my Detroit Tigers bombed in spectacular fashion late this summer, I turned to politics as a way to cheer me up. Everything I've read there is infinitely more entertaining than the performance the Tigers have put on in the second half of the season; the way things are going for the Republicans in particular is almost enough of a distraction for me to let go of the baseball season entirely. Anway, what follows are some completely random and not necessarily related (or interesting) thoughts:

• I just can't bring myself to harbor any ill will towards General Petraeus. "General Betray-Us" (as MoveOn wrote in their typically strident fashion) just doesn't seem like a fair moniker for someone that seems by all accounts to be a decent and competent person. What has he personally done wrong? Was he supposed to decline the task of navigating the U.S. out of this mess? Was he supposed to get in front of Congress and say "We can't win this thing. Send all the troops home tomorrow." We all knew what he was going to say before he went to Capitol Hill-who exactly did he betray?
  
• I just read two excellent articles in this week's New York Review of Books and would highly recommend both. The first one deals with Al Gore and provides some interesting insight into his background on his motivations; the second one is about the Supreme Court, and might make you want to crawl under your bed for the next 5 years or so if you feel the same way about the court that I do.
• If I never read another word Christopher Hitchens writes, my life will be infinitely sunnier. Although I'm a longtime fan and apologist of his, I'm entirely sick of his arrogant, iconoclastic approach. As a reader, it pains me to read someone whose every line is set up to make you seem like a COMPLETE AND TOTAL ASSHOLE if you don't completely agree with every word he says. Regardless of whether I agree with him (and I still often do), I've had enough of his brutish, jackass style.
  
• I am flat-out distressed about this rush to move the primaries back further and further. Although, it seems reasonable that in the future things could be amended so that certain states aren't always ignored for the first few months, it is flat out bad for Democracy if the primaries are this clustered together because it makes money too decisive a factor. If the primaries get so clustered that twenty states vote on a candidate in January, there's just no time for smaller (and possibly superior) candidates to build momentum. The big candidates have more money, which affords them a larger staff, more opportunities to travel, and the ability to spend money on ads in a much larger number of states. Everyone may hate political ads, but their reach and influence (especially if the candidates aren't personally in the state a lot) is indisputable. If the primaries stay this clustered, I don't see how anyone but the front-runner in each party could win in any given year.
  

So, that's what I've been thinking about the last couple of days. Anyone agree? Disagree?