This is no surprise given the promotions that Sen. Obama has been getting in the media: ‘Obama elicits more excitement than McCain’, according to USA Today.
I want to be the voice of reason but 21 years in communications tell me that this is important. If your brand, personal or organizational, elicits excitement among its constituents, then you have a greater chance of mobilizing those people when you need them.
Even when it comes to politics, to get messages across to voters, one has to resort to the tried and trusted techniques of branding and marketing.
There are few in the present generations who will, as many bloggers do, investigate someone’s voting record or dig deeply into their histories. It would be nice to say that presidents are not elected based on how much excitement they can generate. Or that we should place greater emphasis on other qualities like honour and sincerity.
While some might point to exceptions, such as the Tory victory in the UK of 1992, I beg to differ. That campaign was hard fought by the Conservatives and depended on party unity—which was sorely lacking in 1997 when Tony Blair was elected. The National victory in New Zealand of 1990 was a result of the cry for change and the belief that Labour was leaderless.
And the cry for change is such a powerful message in politics, because politicians understand our nature: even the vaguest change is better than the strongest, best defined policies if a party has been in power for too long.
Labour in the UK in 1997, National in New Zealand in 1990, Labour in New Zealand in 1999, Clinton in 1992—all these are examples of that message. And that, too, “excites”.
Sen. McCain should not pursue an excitement route himself, but he should capitalize on mistakes that the Obama campaign is making with greater regularity. The New Yorker gaffe—where Sen. Obama felt the need to comment rather than appear presidential and above satire—was an opportunity missed. Meanwhile, I wonder if people appreciate the maverick, go-it-alone style of John McCain, which plays well in the Senate, but could be symptomatic of future Cabinet divisiveness under his administration.
A winner is by no means clear, and a week remains a long time in politics. Months, as Sen. Clinton will attest as she went from dead cert to second-best, are an eternity.
Another brilliant Eggtoon from Andy Wyatt: this time about Labour’s politics during the Blair era, in the style of South Park. I think it’s funnier than the Windsors one I posted earlier tonight, though the death of Robin Cook in the cartoon might be considered bad taste given that the man has passed away.
Fox News Channel farewells a former colleague. These are some of the people who knew him best, talking about Snow’s honour, decency, strength in his faith, generosity of spirit, and the love of his family. Brett Baer got teary in recalling Tony Snow’s caring, when Baer’s son faced open-heart surgery. Former president George Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush also offered their tributes in this clip.
I didn’t even hear about this bad news till I read it on Zak’s blog, then hunted for a piece on the wires. Journalism has lost one of its classiest, most decent practitioners. Whether you agreed with his politics or not, Tony Snow had decency.
Washington, DC, July 12 Former White House spokesman, journalist and broadcaster Tony Snow succumbed to colon cancer today, aged 53.
Snow had passed away at 2 a.m. at Georgetown University Hospital.
While known to news watchers in the US for his work on Fox News properties, Snow came to international notice when he replaced Scott McClellan as White House spokesman in May 2006.
Unfortunately, Snow, who had already fought cancer in 2005, served only 17 months in the role. In March 2007, he was admitted for surgery to have a cancerous growth removed from his abdominal area.
He resigned in September 2007, joining CNN as a commentator.
Robert Anthony Snow was born in Berea, Ky., on June 1, 1955. He graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. While studying economics and philosophy at the University of Chicago, he wrote for The Greensboro Record and The Virginian–Pilot.
He rose to editorial positions The Newport News, The Detroit News and The Washington Times.
In 1991, Snow joined President George Bush’s team as a speechwriter and media assistant. During the Clinton administration, he returned to journalism, writing columns for The Detroit News and USA Today.
He is survived by his wife of 21 years, Jill, and their children Kendall, Robbie, and Kristi.
White House statement from the President
‘Laura and I are deeply saddened by the death of our dear friend, Tony Snow. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Jill, and their children, Kendall, Robbie, and Kristi. The Snow family has lost a beloved husband and father. And America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character.
‘Tony was one of our nation’s finest writers and commentators. He earned a loyal following with incisive radio and television broadcasts. He was a gifted speechwriter who served in my father’s administration. And I was thrilled when he agreed to return to the White House to serve as my Press Secretary. It was a joy to watch Tony at the podium each day. He brought wit, grace, and a great love of country to his work. His colleagues will cherish memories of his energetic personality and relentless good humour.
‘All of us here at the White House will miss Tony, as will the millions of Americans he inspired with his brave struggle against cancer. One of the things that sustained Tony Snow was his faith—and Laura and I join people across our country in praying that this good man has now found comfort in the arms of his Creator.’
The Los Angeles Times believes San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is considering exploring running for California’s governor when Arnold Schwarzenegger’s term finishes in 2010. Gov Schwarzenegger cannot run again due to his state’s term limits.
Gavin—the fiancé of a friend of mine, and whom I had some dealings with when he was first elected (more specifically, our staffs dealt with one another)—is probably ideal from the Democratic side of things and could score a lot of votes on the coastal counties. Inland, I am less sure.
Right now I say his profile is the highest of the likely rivals, even compared with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in Los Angeles.
I know from many of our mutual friends that Gavin has considered running for the Governor’s office for years, though this is one of the few public articles about this ambition.
I may not agree with all his policies but I believe he is faithful to his principles. And living in a place that has universal healthcare, I like the fact that Gavin has given that to the people of San Francisco.
It’s been interesting watching the MSM dissect the Clinton campaign with a whole range of experts saying why she will not be the Democratic Party nominee for the presidency. I would venture to say these are the same experts predicting a Hillary Clinton win a year ago.
It’s that which I have found remarkable today as Sen. Barack Obama becomes the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party, rather than the very strong likelihood that Sen. Obama has won.
For months, the mainstream media have been promoting Sen. Obama heavily. One reason is that he is newsworthy to the left. More often than not, his race is used as the reason behind that promotion. In essence, most New Zealanders, and I would say most non-Americans who watched the news from the US, were left in little doubt that he would take the Democratic Party contest.
Image sells in American politics, and probably politics in many western countries. George W. Bush got people used to thinking about a Republican president in 2000 by forming his cabinet while lawyers battled Florida. When he did win, only diehard Democrats tried to tell the American people they had been hoodwinked. Everyone else awaited the January 20, 2001 swearing-in. Go back a few years and Tony Blair, too, gave an inevitable image of a Labour victory in 1997.
This time, Sen. Obama has done the same, and it has been a well thought-out campaign: his book, writing from a humanist perspective and admitting any faults that his rivals were likely to dig up; a consistent branding scheme (the use of the Gotham typeface, for example); and vagueness (to give his opponents less of a target).
On some of these aspects, Sen. Obama has fielded a very different campaign. Only vagueness seems to be the common thread with other winners. A pre-campaign book was clever as well as admitting to things no other potential presidential nominee would, such as his having tried cocaine.
In fact, when he began getting specific after a challenge by Sen. Clinton, he actually lost traction.
I do not pretend to like all of Sen. Obama’s policies if I were to look at his voting record in the Senate, any more than I find myself in accord with Sens. Clinton and McCain.
As a minority, I am glad that a racial barrier has been broken in American politics. Even though Sen. Obama is biracial, he has been branded an African–American through his father’s homeland, showing just how people are habitual pigeonholers. If by the quirk of genetics he had his mother’s skin colour, would his race have become such an issue?
That one matter shows how far his campaign has come, in a country that would not have fathomed a “black” president other than in fiction, in the form of Morgan Freeman or Dennis Haysbert.
We can accept God being played by Morgan Freeman, but a black president?
While having huge African–American support, I totally understand the campaign Sen. Obama ran in terms of race: he plain didn’t mention it.
I wouldn’t.
Any member of any minority in the world, whether that minority is black, yellow, brown or white, who has been brought up on the idea of hard work and dignity, would not make race an issue—with perhaps the exception of others making race an issue for him or her.
I think that earned Sen. Obama brownie points among many of the United States’ immigrants and people descended relatively recently from immigrants.
It finally proves so many of those lessons from our parents right: that if you work hard, you can become a leader.
Once upon a time, parents said that but knew that it would take a miracle for a minority to get there, whether we are talking about the US or New Zealand.
Barack Obama is proof not only of his own abilities, but he represents the hope that the presidency is no longer governed by skin colour, but by sheer hard work. That speaks to a large part of the electorate, including Caucasian–Americans.
In some ways this has allowed his policies to be overlooked, which is actually unhealthy for democracy. Americans need to be voting on who can bring them true honour and meaning. But just as Sen. Obama began attacking Sen. John McCain’s policies as he presumed himself the Democratic nominee, it will be up to Sen. McCain to reveal his opponent’s policy shortcomings.
However, it was not always in the bag.
Those same MSM experts seem to forget that Sen. Clinton, using a campaign that broke the rules on branding (a confused message and confused visual communications) got so close to Sen. Obama that it actually was a miracle she survived and gained as many votes as she did. Writing in a country that has had two successive female prime ministers and, at one point, women in the Governor-General’s and Chief Justice’s role as well, the gender difference means far less to me. What I saw was a clumsy campaign that had more traction than logic would allow me to admit.
Sen. Clinton’s progress was nothing short of amazing considering she did not play from the rulebook, and we brand consultants will have to at least acknowledge her case and say: anomalies exist in marketing strategy.
The question is now whether there is a Clinton vice-presidency, but Obama aides are dead set against it. Equally, Clinton aides would not want their senator cosying up with Sen. Obama.
If the Clinton image of “will say and do anything for the top job” is accurate, and as Sen. Clinton herself mentioned the possibility of assassination, I would not consider the senator from New York to be a vice-presidential nominee if I were Barack Obama. I might get “Arkancided” in the hope of her succession.
But right now, Sen. Obama has a Democratic Party to reunite and invigorate, something that Sen. McCain may have difficulty doing for an uninspired GOP. Sen. Obama has media visibility on his side, reaching internal as well as external audiences.
This is National Headache Awareness Week. Show us what gives you a headache.
Warning: this may also give you a headache.
The following is a comment in response to the exchange from my earlier blog post on gay marriage in California. I believe it is important (for my own ego!) to address charges that I am prejudiced against gays or am a bigot. It is a pity that while I am open to seeing the other side of the argument in favour of gay marriage in California, as a heterosexual man I am already labelled (prejudged) as being incapable of that.
I am going to Lawcrawler to see if I can find this controversial judgement and will give my thoughts on it later.
T. G. C., I am reading your extract short of seeing the full judgement, and I find it somewhat unconvincing.
Let me address one point: the article I posted is an article I posted. Simple. I do find it somewhat offensive that you and Madonna would attribute its position to me when even I have not done so. Yes, you may feel it has a personal endorsement by its mere appearance here. In that case your opinion of me is forgiveable. I can understand that the article inflames certain passions. However, it is my opinion that if the article were fair, then the judges in this case do not understand their jobs.
A bit about my history, so at least we can get on the same page here. I have a fairly good grasp of the law as I am qualified with an LL B. I live in a country that was an early pioneer in homosexual law reform and has a proud tradition of embracing lifestyles that traditionalists would be appalled at. I could probably even find you two gay couples who would attest to my views on the subject that I would say most gays (here) would believe are reasonable and fair.
My posting an article is for promoting understanding, certainly my own, and certainly, too, to contrast the way your country handles legal positions against the way my one does.
Let me take one of your highlighted points:
we disagree with the Attorney General and the Governor to the extent they suggest that the traditional or long-standing nature of the current statutory definition of marriage exempts the statutory provisions embodying that definition from the constraints imposed by the California Constitution, or that the separation-of-powers doctrine precludes a court from determining that constitutional question
Obviously without reading the statute I am less informed, but this is fairly true: in general, in most common law jurisprudence, courts to interpret laws in line with (state or federal) constitutions.
Then, however, we have a conflict if the definition of marriage is codified, and this is perhaps the stem of the conflict more than anything.
Traditionally, even when legislation is interpreted in the spirit of a constitutional document—a familiar argument here given the Treaty of Waitangi—it is not done by completely violating the wording of that legislation.
To you and Madonna, it may be an issue of what the public wants, but if you have a Governor who keeps vetoing such bills, then I find it unconvincing that we rely on those bills in legal interpretation. In fact, this fact alone illustrates the law’s insufficiency at this present stage for those supporting gay marriage.
The judicial task when faced with wanting to respect the will of the people and equal-rights doctrines in a constitution is to find third ways, clever exceptions that provide citizens with what they want without violating the legislation before them. This is a given in common law.
While this means that gay marriage will take far longer to be recognized if this is the prevailing trend, law is something that takes decades to remould, but it should not be short-circuited.
The law of negligence is a classic example in tort: probably most law students will recall this took decades before the landmark Donahue v. Stevenson case in 1928 and Lord Atkin’s classic judgement.
Laws are slow, they are often reactive, but it is the system we are laboured with. An ideal world would be one without laws and with self-regulation between people acting with their complete free wills. I hold this to be an ideal and it matters, at the end of the day, little what definitions state about this word or that—but it does matter to me that while we have our current system, it is conducted fairly until the people decide on another system again.
You bring up Perez v. Lippold. You are right that this is actually highly convincing and I thank you for reminding me of it. I do know a little about this case but there are some distinctions based on religion, the Fourteenth Amendment and constitutional interpretation, and these really helped the couple there. The respondent also presented some heavily biased opinion that the court saw through.
There was indeed a law written in statute that barred the marriage of the couple in that case, one that was, admittedly, steadily eroded by the courts as it expanded the definition of marriage to increasingly more races.
The court held (inter alia) that the sections in that legislation were too vague especially when it came to racial classifications—which was how ultimately it got around the interracial ban.
You see, there was no legislating from the bench: the judge in Perez showed how lacking the legislation was, how it offended the basic tenets of the requirements of American law, and it was effectively a challenge to the legislature that: if you want to block us, revisit the law and redraft it if you dare. This I accept as this fight goes on all the time in a democracy.
This is why I asked you and Madonna to find me the judgement, though since I haven’t heard back, I’ll have a trawl through Lawcrawler myself in a sec.
Without clever methods of finding a way around fairly strictly worded statutes, I do believe from what little I know (yes, maybe I shall accept the ignorance charge) the judges crossed the line here.
Contrary to your and Madonna’s biased views of me, I retain an open mind.
[Cross-posted] In January 2006, I predicted petrol would hit NZ$2 per litre but attributed it more to the Labour Government’s mishandling of New Zealand currency rather than oil prices. Now that the price has come to pass—consider that when I made it, $1·40 per litre was unheard of—I am surprised that no one in the mainstream media or even politics has brought up the parallels with the 1970s and New Zealand’s solution to the fuel crises.
It seems a very obvious thing to bring up, so I have to question what people are afraid of.
Responding to the volatility of international fuel prices, the Muldoon administration of 1975–84 embarked on energy projects in an effort to make New Zealand less vulunerable. The various Synfuel projects and energy exploration resulted in an era where New Zealanders drove around in natural gas vehicles, and we even produced our own petrol after converting it from gas.
By the late 1970s, the New Zealand Government was subsidizing gas conversions and certainly by the early 1980s, many (most?) petrol stations offered compressed natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas alongside petrol and diesel. It was just considered normal.
New Zealand was saving its foreign exchange and people were driving environmentally friendly cars.
In 1984, the right-wing policies of the Labour Government saw most state assets relating to the venture sold off to corporations and Muldoon’s venture was passed off as a folly by the new administration, the technocrats of the Business Roundtable and, shockingly, by the National Party itself as it changed leaders.
Even a bid to market LPG as an environmentally friendly fuel in the 1990s could not save it as the National Government taxed it tremendously—something that was clearly not done in the national interest.
The winners of the destruction of this energy venture were the corporations, predominantly foreign-owned, buying in to outmoded, socially irresponsible technocratic thinking that has brought a widening rich–poor gap.
That gap can only increase today with the cost of petrol, now refined offshore and imported by those same corporations, spiralling out of control.
There’s not a peep from National, now in opposition, to say that it had been right in the 1970s as the only party prepared to shield a little country, so easily swayed by global economic forces, from oil company greed.
The only logical and cynical conclusion is that National are as big a sell-out of New Zealanders as Labour and Roger Douglas were in the 1980s. And that they are suckers for monetarist theory, all the time closing their minds to the mere possibility that Muldoon—whose policies were adored by successful national leaders such as Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, who did all right with them—might have been right.
It’s election year—and National’s John Key is silent. Again.
There’s a lot Sir Robert Muldoon got wrong but on the alternative-energy policies, I can’t find too much fault.
First, New Zealand is a little country that is too drastically affected by global economics. Even Malaysia in 1997 could not protect itself properly against them. Hence, the technocratic, monetarist movement cannot be left unguarded.
Secondly, energy prices are unstable and New Zealanders need to be protected against them.
Thirdly, environmental policies demand that we look at alternative fuels.
Fourthly, this is something that needs a governmental push to ensure alternatives are available nationwide, or at least somehow create incentives for the infrastructure.
Faced with these basic facts, the development of our own energy sources for the long term seemed to be the only way forward.
Sure it was cumbersome and expensive to develop, and there were missteps along the way, but where would we be today? Certainly not paying $2 a litre.
Little did Sir Robert foresee that it would be so gleefully dismantled by his successors—with the same arguments of efficiency so cleverly used by the technocrats of the Slater Walker era in the United Kingdom.
In spite of all the English expats here, we bought the arguments hook, line and sinker.
One would have hoped that today, we would remain shielded from these energy crises offshore, with our fleet of natural gas-powered cars. That we would be leading the world in showing how alternative fuels worked, and foreign countries would be coming to us to license our technology.
We gave up that lead, that advantage, in 1996 to follow the American example of gas guzzlers and SUVs.
The General Election is mere months away, this is the hottest issue on the book, and no one dares bring up Muldoon. It’s because no one dares offend a few rich bastards making money off working New Zealanders by bringing up a leader who dared stand up to foreign corporate interests.
I guess rules and signing pledges mean nothing to Sen. Hillary Clinton. And if she takes such a callous approach to her own party’s rules, will she have much respect for the US, its Constitution and its laws?
This is not a new news item, but it does echo the flip-flop nature of Sen. Clinton and her deafening insistence now that Florida and Michigan be seated at the Democratic convention. You know, those states that she said earlier didn’t need to be seated?
She’s only louder now because we know Sen. Obama is gaining among white voters.