Shadow Cabinet III

The idea of a shadow cabinet has made its way to the NY Times op-ed page!

Ego the size of a planet!

Is Nader an egomaniac? Here's what the LA Times has to say on this:

Nader refuses to take the criticism personally. (The fact that his feelings aren't hurt, he avers, proves he's not an egomaniac.) In fact, if you spend more than about 30 seconds with Nader — who was in town the other day to celebrate his 70th birthday — it's pretty clear he thinks Democrats should thank him. After all, he's doing them a favor.

Sorry Ralph, having no hurt feelings proves nothing. A true egomaniac wouldn't have hurt feelings because he would know that the attacks of others are unfounded and therefore not worth considering.

Judging Bush II

Go read publius's response to the previously mentioned Saletan article as well. He(?) points out the power of "default settings" in political dialog and how many people just don't have the time to think to hard about the issues so they rely on a set of pre-programmed "default settings". Both the right and left do this, but publius argues persuasively that the right has a better mechanism for putting out new "default settings" to deal with new situations (FOX News, the TiVo network of the vast right-wing conspiracy!)

The problem with Bush is that he may be the first president in a long time (if not the first) who also works on this "default setting" model. Which makes him a great president for the interests who back him ("Just load in a new program Karl!") but not all that great for the rest of us.

Judging Bush

William Saletan has an excellent article up on how Bush is his own worse enemy:

How can Kerry persuade moderates to throw out Bush? By turning the president's message against him. Bush is steady and principled. He believes money is better spent by individuals than by the government. He believes the United States should assert its strength in the world. He believes public policy should respect religious faith. Most Americans share these principles and think Bush is sincere about them. The problem Bush has demonstrated in office is that he has no idea how to apply his principles in a changing world. He's a big-picture guy who can't do the job.

From foreign to economic to social policy, Bush's record is a lesson in the limits and perils of conviction. He's too confident to consult a map. He's too strong to heed warnings and too steady to turn the wheel when the road bends. He's too certain to admit error, even after plowing through ditches and telephone poles. He's too preoccupied with principle to understand that principle isn't enough. Watching the stars instead of the road, he has wrecked the budget and the war on terror. Now he's heading for the Constitution. It's time to pull him over and take away the keys.

I've argued for some time that disputing Bush's honesty is a tough and potentially dangerous strategy. Despite the fact that many people don't like what Bush is doing, many more of them still think he is doing it for the best of reasons. Questioning his heart is a losing proposition. What you have to do is question what he has actually accomplished (or not accomplished, as the case may be).

Take a clue from Howard Dean: he made progress when he argued convincingly that the Democrats were failing to provide strong leadership and he shot up in the polls. But he went off track when he focused to much on questions of motivation and character, even going so far as the characterize his opponents as Republicans at heart (instead of just being Republican appeasers). It was then that he started to lose the interest of the fence sitters.

Do not fight with anyone who says they like Bush. Just ask them what he has done right as president. Don't worry about trying to convert them. Get them to convince you that you should vote for Bush. When they fail to do so (I hope), maybe they will begin to see that there are good reasons not to elect the guy.

 

Now, having said that, I need to comment on Bush's motivation in order to respond to another part of Saletan's article.

Saletan makes a good point in highlighting the fact that Bush's most appealing characteristic (his absolute certainty of the correctness of his actions) is actually the one thing that disqualifies him for the presidency. Now, while I disagree with Saletan's assertion that Bush's tax cuts were a good idea up until 9/11, the basic argument of his thesis is sound: Bush doesn't know how to adjust his personal inclinations to meet the facts on the ground. Thus he is simply unwilling to accept the idea that an economic program that might have been good in 1999 may no longer be viable in 2003.

In Bush we have a form of extreme moral absolutism that contrasts with the moral relativism bugaboo that the right has railed against for so long. If something is good then it must be good regardless of the situation. If something is bad then it must be bad regardless of the situation. Evil and Good are inherent qualities arising out of the thing itself. They are not reflections of the environment in which they exist.

Judging America

Andrew Sullivan points to this NY Times article as being suggestive about the real reason's for Russia's opposition to Gulf War II. Namely, that it was based on self-interest.

First of all, d'uh! Of course Russia's position on Iraq was based on self-interest. That meant both protecting economic investments as well as covering for "illegal" weapons programs as this article suggests. I don't know many people who opposed Bush's war who would assert that Russia (or France or China or whomever) didn't have ulterior motives for blocking Dubya's efforts. Few are naive enough to believe that these people are saints.

What I have always disputed was the notion that the United State's motives were any more pure. That, I think, is the real bone of contention in this debate.

Short and simple: you don't have to be an America hater to believe that there was more going on in the last year than a simple desire to protect Americans from terrorism. You just have to allow for a realistic assessment of human nature. Mr. Sullivan allows for this when it comes to judging Russia. Will he allow for it when it comes to judging America?

Btw, I wonder what Mr. Sullivan thinks of the following from that same article:

American officials now say that the United Nations restrictions that allowed Iraq to keep missiles with ranges of up to 150 kilometers had an unintended effect. From the Iraqi perspective, it meant that it was still legal for Baghdad to continue some missile development activities, since short-range missiles were permitted.

By contrast, United Nations sanctions completely banned Iraq from keeping any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, and it now seems that Iraq eventually abandoned those programs.

Got that? Saddam may well have abandoned his WMD program specifically because of the U.N. restrictions. The ones that many argued were ineffective in stopping the guy.

Evil Firefighters II

Yesterday I talked about how it would be difficult for Bush/Rove to fight against the Firefighters Union because firefighters are the most pure form of hero this society has. I couldn't think of an example of bad firefighters. A couple of people have pointed out at least two examples: (1) the movie "Backdraft" which featured, if I remember correctly, an arsonist who was also a firefighter and (2) the recent reports of firefighters pocketing souvenirs from ground zero. There was also mention of firefighters getting in trouble for wild parties, but that kind of thing really isn't specific to them being firefighters.

I'll give points for both examples, but this is still a pretty paltry record of bad behavior associated with being a firefighter when compared to honorable professions like being a soldier.

Of course, Kerry has the advantage of being back by both firefighters and veterns.

He speaks great spanish!

Check out this parody of the Bush ads.

"George W. Bush has a plan to get us out of this mess. Just vote for him and find out what it is."

 

Evil Firefighters

Does anyone besides me think that the Firefighters Union may prove to be the single most important arrow in Kerry's quiver?

I've always thought that a firefighter is the purest example of a hero there is. They save lives while risking their own lives in the process but, unlike soldiers, they don't carry the negative baggage of occasionally having to kill people. When was the last time you saw an evil firefighter in a movie or TV show? Every other profession on the face of the Earth has been stigmatized by negative portrayals in the media. Every profession, that is, except firefighters.

How does Karl Rove demonize the firefighters who are criticizing Bush for exploiting 9/11?

Coordinated response from the Democrats!?

Interesting comment from Kos regarding the quick flurry of negative responses to Bush's first round of TV ads:

Given the quickness of the response, and the coordinated "ambush" aspect of it, it almost seems as our side was actually prepared for Bush's inevitable exploitation of our nation's biggest recent tragedy.

Hmmm. Could these responses have been coordinated in some way? It is possible in the case of the firefighters, who are big backers of John Kerry and often credited with being life preserver through the long days before Iowa. But I'm not so sure that the 9/11 families that have come out and criticized this action did so at the behest of the Democrats.

I think it more likely that the speed of the negative response comes more from the fact that so many people have simply lost patience with Bush, were expecting this kind exploitation of national tragedy and were thus prepared to respond quickly when it happened.

No coordination, just similar causation.

Update: Luke Frankl has a roundup of reaction to the Bush ads. He comments on the Kos thread:

I'm not sure if the 9/11 thing will backfire on Bush. My co-blogger at BushOut says "No one will watch this ad and turn there nose at the 9/11 imagery. No one will watch this ad and think George Bush is making excuses. If they do have that immediate gut reaction, you can be sure they already made up their mind not to vote for Bush in the first place."

But if the criticism is coming from the Fire Fighters and the families, it may just. It may just...

I think that Luke is right that whether one has a negative reaction to these ads will depend primarily on whether you are already have negative feelings towards Bush already. However, that is no consolation for Bush since the volume of the reaction indicates that there is a deep well and broad well of negative feeling towards Bush already and that these ads may have struck a raw nerve.

In other words, they won't turn people against Bush. But they are an indication of just how strong is the feeling against the guy already.

Kerry Shadow Cabinet II

It looks like the idea of a Kerry Shadow Cabinet is catching on. Ezra, Matthew and Atrios have all weighed in on the idea and seem to favor it.

Atrios has a good suggestion for how to avoid the pitfall of a bad choice for a particular position derailing the campaign: don't actually list them as the official nominee. Just announce them as your designated-go-to-guy-or-gal for that part of the government. They would, of course, have the inside track on being the eventual nominee for their respective position. But you wouldn't have to go through a full-blown vetting and scandal-watch phase for them. In fact, their performance on the road would become their vetting process.

Ezra has his suggestions up. I like some of them. Here are mine:

President: John Kerry
Vice-President: Bill Richardson
Sec. of Homeland Security: Gary Hart
Sec. of Veterans Affairs: Max Cleland
Attorney General: Eliot Spitzer
Sec. of Labor: Dick Gephardt
Sec. of Health, Human Services: Howard Dean

It's just business

I was commenting to some people at the meetup last night that the Bush's have no inherent ideology other then what is best for them. The thing I find most laughable about the right-wingers who support Bush is that they have bought into the myth that Bush is there to help them. Bush may be personally conservative. But his support of conservative and right-wing actions (such as the FMA) are only based on convenience, not principle. The convenience being what such support can do for him.

For example, I do not believe that Bush personally is either racist or bigoted. However, I believe he is more than willing to appeal to racist and bigoted attitudes amongst the electorate in order to achieve and retain power. Some might argue that this demonstrates a racists attitude towards blacks since it means he devalues their concerns. But he isn't doing it because they are black. He is doing it because the people whose support he wants just don't like blacks.

It's nothing personal. It's just business.

I have often wondered if, some day, the right-wingers would wake up and realize that they are being played for fools. Then I read posts like the following by Ozymandius (link courtesy Sully) and I am heartened that that moment is not that far off.

If Bush should lose this election, it will be very clear why. I have been a Republican and a Christian my whole life. I believe that national security is the #1 most important issue in America – it is, to be blunt, the thing that makes any other issue possible in the first place. I do not buy the loss of jobs argument, I think tax cuts work, and I think abortion is wrong, I still support the Iraq war and feel that those 500 plus brave men and women saved untolled millions from horrible death, and I even agree that activist judges should simply be arrested and dismissed from office. I believe all this and right now, I don’t know if I’m voting for Bush.

I don’t know because this political ploy is so overtly mean-spirited and opportunistic it that my own sense of fairness and decency is far more offended by the attack than whatever defense could be made of it. I can’t believe I am the only one, even the only Christian to feel this way.

I have several fundamental philosophical disagreements with people on the right (and, surprisingly, I find myself in agreement with them quite often). But I do not believe that all of them are, at heart, mean-spirited individuals. Many of them honestly believe they are advocating a course that is the best for all of mankind. What they need to realize is that Bush is not their friend when it comes to supporting their position and that not all of us who have opposed the Bush administration have down so because of ideology.

I just think he is a lousy president and an untrustworthy individual. That assessment has nothing to do with partisanship. It's nothing personal. It's just business.

What it comes down to

Andrew Sullivan:

[...] My own disillusionment with the president is not, despite appearances, all to do with marriage. I first worried with the aircraft carrier stunt, the post-war mess in Iraq, then the fiscal insouciance, and the more general bossiness that this unlibertarian president was exhibiting. The message chaos of the least few months, capped by that dreadful Meet the Press interview, was unnerving, to say the least. The solution? We need to hear what our future strategy is in the war: who we're targeting next. We need to see more clarity on Iraq, more commitment on al Qaeda, more explanation of what we're doing and where we're going. I'm tired with hearing recitations of the president's past conduct and want to hear more about the future. Churchill didn't spend 1943 reminding people of what a great leader he had been in 1940. In contrast, the first Bush campaign ads are all retrospective, nostalgic even. If they're the campaign, he'll lose.

I'm not one to engage in the kind of neener-neener-told-you-so comments I've seen around the blogosphere in response to Sully's growing disillusion with Dubya. It is always painful when ones heroes turn out to be less (much less) than what you thought they were and it really doesn't benefit anyone to rub it in his face.

Of course, I've never been the recipient of caustic criticism from Sullivan (other than the general "blue-state fifth columnists" crap).

Having said that, I think Andrew is on to something important here about Bush's inherent weakness on what is supposed to be his signature issue (national security). Bush can't rely on the glories of the past if he is going to win re-election. The American people are fickle and even the flush of war-time victories can fade in the light of more pressing and immediate difficulties (how about that job picture Mr. President?) In such a situation, Bush can't rely on the fence-sitters coming to his aid if his entire message is "I did great things for you yesterday."

Their natural response, as Andrew ably demonstrates, is going to be, "Yeah, but what are going to do for me today? And what about tomorrow?"

No President can hope to coast to re-election. Especially one as inherently weak but supernaturally lucky as Bush is.

As of right now, the 2004 presidential election may come to a contest of which candidate screws up the least.

Voting is for Smart People!

I think that would be an appropriate response to this shirt

<Montgomery Burns Voice>Excellent!</Montgomery Burns Voice>

Anytime you can put these guys on the defensive is a good thing.

NEW YORK (AP) - President Bush's re-election campaign on Thursday defended commercials using images from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, including wreckage of the World Trade Center, as appropriate for an election about public policy and the war on terror.

Some families of the victims of the attacks are angry with Bush for airing the spots, which they called in poor taste and for the president's political gain.

A reasonable argument could be made that, given that one of Bush's main arguments for his re-election is his performance in the war on terror, that it is only natural that he would should use images from the most significant event in that war. And I think many people would, under normal circumstances, be willing to cut any president some slack on this point.

Therefore, the fact that Bush is getting heat for this means that many people have lost patience with his performance in that war. They are no longer willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this point. This is very significant regardless of how "fair" it is to Bush.

After all, if Bush can't use images of 9/11 to sell his candidacy without suffering this kind of criticism then it will make it that much harder for him to remind people why they might want to re-elect him. He's stuck in a tough spot and frankly he has only himself to blame for it.

Good!

The time is now

Watching the recent spate of cities and counties licensing same-sex marriages I am reminded of a movie I saw a few years back about the civil rights movement. The name of the movie escapes me at this moment (sorry) but the story was about efforts to organize southern blacks to vote back in the 50s and 60s. It primarily focused on a group of black teenagers who were working with a group of out-of-town civil rights organizers, training people how to vote and how to deal with the almost inevitable physical confrontations they would be facing. They trained and trained and trained, but the out-of-towners consistently refused to let the kids go out and actually start putting their training into practice because they, the out-of-towners, felt the kids weren't ready yet.

The climax of the movie came when some incident occured (again, my weakening memory fails me about what it was specifically) that sparked a spontaneous march by the black teenagers on the city hall. The out-of-towners rushed to the crowd of black men and urged them to turn back telling them, once again, that they weren't ready yet.

The kids as one essentially told the organizers that they weren't waiting any more for permission to assert their rights. The out-of-towners, seeing how determined the kids were, realized that the kids were ready and that it was them that had been holding them back. So, instead of fighting it any more, they worked with the kids to hold their protest ("If we're going to do this thing then we better do it right.")

There's a message here for those who would keep saying that the time hasn't yet come for people (in this case homosexuals) to assert their rights (in this case, the right for full legal recognition of same sex marriages): eventually those who want those rights won't wait any longer and even those who support them better get behind them when that happens.

If we're going to this thing then we better do it right.

The Democratic Base

Courtesty Tom Toles

Yep. A lot of people had forgotten that the Democrats had a base, including the Democratic leadership.

Surprise!

Collectivism and American political parties

In the deluded nightmares of extreme right-wingers, the Democratic party is nothing more then a facade over a collectivist plan to take over the world. But from the experience I have had over the last year I can tell you that the last people in the world that is capable of taking collectivist action are Democrats. If anything, it is Republicans who are much better at submitting their individual wills to the will of the party. It is the Republican party that is collectivist in action and inclination.

I could only wish that Democrats were as single-minded as the wingers think they are.

Cynicism

Kevin Drum let's his cynical side do the talking this morning:

I (and Brad) live in a state which last October was facing a $10 billion budget hole. We responded by electing a governor who promised to "stop the crazy deficit spending." As soon as he took office he increased the deficit by $4 billion by cutting vehicle license fees. Then in December he proposed to finance this tax cut by issuing an extra $4 billion* in bonds. Yesterday my fellow citizens eagerly approved this bond issue by a wide margin. At the same time they made it clear in no uncertain terms that they will not put up with any tax increases whatsoever as a means of addressing the deficit.

My point? What makes us think that the people of America are interested in someone who is competent, steeped in the issues, and allergic to the magic asterisk? As near as I can tell, they are far more likely to vote for people who (a) lie to them, (b) cut their taxes, and (c) pretend that a magic asterisk really will make the deficits caused by their tax cuts go away. The American public is practically addicted to the magic asterisk.

I've commented before that one of the things that appealed to me about Howard Dean was that he was a doctor and he had a doctor's sensibility when it came to approaching the problems we are facing today. When you go to your doctor you don't want him to be political in his diagnosis. You don't want him to fool you into thinking that things aren't as bad as they might be. You want brutal honesty. A doctor who doesn't warn a morbidly obese patient that they are eating themselves to death is an irresponsible doctor who should lose their license.

A politician who does the same thing wins re-election.

People say they don't want their leaders to lie to them. That is a lie. They just want them to tell the right kind of lie.

Howard Dean was right in so many ways and that is why he lost.

Dean Meetup

Last night I attended the first post-withdrawal Dean meetup and it was an interesting experience to say the least. Overall, the Portland area saw a drop in meetups from 9 locations last month to only 3 this month. But attendance was still good at the meetup I went to (about 30 people). It took a while to build the meetup momentum that we had before and it might take a few months to get the numbers back up again. But it is possible.

Why do I say that? Because, despite Dean dropping out, there were new people at the meetup last night!

How many candidates could say that they could draw new interest from people even after they had dropped out?

The Dean campaign for president (2004 version) might be dead, but the Dean campaign for America isn't dead yet.

Comparing Sizes

Dave Winer reports:

According to a source close to the Kerry campaign, they will announce shortly that they have raised over $1 million through their website in the last 24 hours. This is apparently a record, at its peak the Dean campaign didn't raise so much in one day.

Not to get into a "whose is bigger" contest, but while Dean's single day record of approximately $700,000 is smaller than the alleged $1 million haul for Kerry, there are a couple of other factors to take into consideration:

1. Dean achieved his personal best at a time when the field was still chock full of legitimate contenders while Kerry's big pay day came on the day when he essentially locked up the nomination. Thus, he got the benefit of being the only logical place to send your money (note: I contributed $10 yesterday myself).
   
2. Dean achieved his personal best in the days after Iowa when many political prognosticators were saying that his campaign was fatally wounded. Yes, he did eventually lose, but a come-back was still achievable at that stage. So, not only was Dean hauling in the bucks in a competitive field he was doing it from dedicated supporters who believed in what his candidacy represented.

If it is true that Kerry made $1 million yesterday then I am very happy for him. He will need all the money he can get to hold par with Bush. I just wanted to put forward a little Dean pride.

Kerry Shadow Cabinet?

Kos has started a new Cattle Call for the Veepstakes. It's "for fun only" says Kos but who knows what influence it might have on the final result?

What draws my interest here, however, is the leading comment to Kos' post that suggests that Kerry go beyond just naming a VP and name his entire cabinet before he is even elected!

I got into a discussion a couple of months back about the idea of the eventual nominee naming a shadow cabinet before the election. It seems to me to only be tradition that says you wait until after the election to name who will be your leading deputies. But why stick to tradition? After all, Colin Powell was the presumptive Secretary of State even before Bush was selected. It wasn't official, but everyone knew the job was his.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach? Well, one advantage is that you present the election in terms of administration v. administration, not just president v. president. Each of the designated cabinet nominees become the immediate go-to spokesperson for their area of concern. So the weekly talk shows will be filled from here until November with debates not just between the top of the ticket but between all their designated hitters. This would certainly take the stress off of Kerry to be the #1 expert in each and every field.

I've often thought that Dean suffered for not having enough surrogates to go out there and take media heat for him.

Of course there are disadvantages. For one thing, nearly every slate of cabinet appointees has one or two that embarrass their boss by not getting approved, either because of partisan differences or because they are brought down by a previously unknown scandal. This kind of thing inevitably tarnishes the reputation of the person who selected them in the first place. So, if Kerry were to choose members of his shadow cabinet now, he'd have to be pretty damn sure they would pull there weight.

It may be to risky a proposition for someone like Kerry to pursue, even to a limited extent (1-2 nominees for, say, Defense and State). But it is an interesting idea to discuss.

Continuing the $100 revolution

Liberal Oasis makes the point that Dean's $100 revolution ($100 contributions from 2 million Americans = $200 million Bush is planning to raise) need not die with Howard Dean's campaign. It can continue with John Kerry even if Kerry is not the grassroots darling that Dean was.

Corporate special interests will give to Kerry (though less so than Bush), and they will get access for it. That’s not necessarily Kerry’s fault, simply the system as it is today.

But that influence can be significantly mitigated.

A powerful message about what the Democratic party should represent, and who the party should answer to, will be delivered if the grassroots band together and give in small amounts.

Giving Kerry a $200 million war chest can be a powerful message to the man from Massachusetts if for no other reason then he will know that he doesn't have to bow to the will of $2000 donors in order to fund his efforts. He still may not be as natural a grassroots candidate as Howard Dean might have been, but $200 million in small donations can go a long way towards strengthening that backbone that Dean gave him. (Besides, whose to say that Dean really would have given a damn what we thought were it not for the money we gave him?)

Remember, donations to a candidate don't buy you a stance on a particular issue. But they do buy you some measure of their attention so that they might start to act like what you want actually matters.

Unity II

If there are those among you who can't bring themselves to donate to Kerry (yet) then I urge you to find some other way that is acceptable to you to support a united front. I agree with Billmon:

I'm not going to pretend I'm overwhelmed with excitement about our presumptive Democratic nominee, but if we're going to stop Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rummy and the gang, we're all going to need to come together, and work hard for JFK II.

Or more to the point: we're going to need to work hard for ourselves, and for our future. For a chance to build a better America -- someday.

Working hard for John Kerry is working hard for ourselves. It isn't about him. It's about us.

We have the power!

Cool

The revolution comes to Portland

PORTLAND, ORE. - It has happened in Massachusetts, San Francisco and now it is happening in Portland.

The Multnomah County Clerk's office plans to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples starting tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. at their office located at 501 S.E. Hawthorne.

Oregon's marriage law states that marriage is a civil contract entered by males who are at least 17 years old and females who are at least 17 years old.

The law does not specify whether the marriage has to be between a man and a woman.

I'm already hearing from several acquaintances who plan to take full advantage of this.

Congratulations to John Kerry!

In the spirit of unity I'm making a congratulatory $10 donation to Kerry's campaign (an idea suggested by Atrios).

Now on with the next fight!

Barbarians at the gate

Some of you may be wondering why I haven't commented on the recent Howard Kurtz dish on what was really going on within the Dean campaign (at least according to some).

Frankly, I'm just not interested in getting into the details of petty disputes. It is always useful, when stories like this come out, to remember that all large organizations have their share of back-biting and insider-gossip. The problem is only exacerbated when the organization falls apart. Everyone starts looking for someone to blame and all those little petty disputes can get blown all out of proportion.

Were there problems within the Dean campaign? No doubt. But there are also people out there who get a vicarious thrill out of pouring salt on the wound and then watching people squirm in the process. I'm not going to give them that pleasure. "Let's you and him fight" style of journalism has no appeal to me.

I'd rather marvel at what the Dean campaign did right then wallow in others emotional turmoil.

NYCO has a good diary post over at the DailyKos that says it better.

ASIDE: I've received some comments of late that I seem to be to critical of the Dean campaign and not critical enough of those who attacked it. I agree with them that there are many external reasons why the Dean campaign collapsed, not the least of which was a political media that puts to much focus on trivialities. I have railed against media failures and the failures of the Democratic establishment for years. No need to tell me not to ignore these factors.

But, regardless of the external obstacles that Dean faced, the fact that he failed to overcome them should not be dismissed as irrelevant. All politicians who attempt to truly weed out the cruff within our system are going to face the same obstacles and will have to overcome them if they are going to ultimately succeed. Dean must share in the blame for his ultimate failure and examining where he went wrong will help us to determine how best to proceed in the future.

Don't ignore the barbarians storming the gate. But don't blame them when your defenses are to weak to keep them out.

New Blog

Alice Marshall, who has written a couple of guest posts on this blog (one of which was the single-most linked to post I've ever published) has started her own blog. It's focus is primarily on Get Out The Vote efforts in Virginia, but I suspect it will contain ideas of interest to even non-Virginians.