The Spencerian

Off the Radar Back for Your Enjoyment Edition

So here in Florida in State House District 52, it looks like Jeff Brandes got a challenger in Bill Nobles.  From Pinski Politics:

Nobles, 36, has been a Floridian most of his life. Born and raised in Pensacola, Bill Nobles has lived in St. Petersburg for roughly seven years. He is a graduate of St. Pete College and USF; Nobles also has a Master of Science in Finance from Boston College. He is currently employed at AEGON in St. Petersburg.

According to a biographical document provided to Pinski Politics, Nobles is married with three children, one of which was lost due to a lung defect. His wife, Erin, earned her JD from the Suffolk University College of Law, and works in the Office of the Attorney General, enforcing child support orders. Bill Nobles’ memberships include: St. Petersburg Bicycle Club, USA Triathlon, March of Dimes, Historic Old Northeast Neighborhood Association, CFA Tampa Bay and First United Methodist Church in Downtown St. Petersburg.

I would say Mr. Nobles has a lot of potential to put me exactly in my place!  Is he Jeff Brandes's Jeff Brandes, as I sort of hope for in that post?  Not sure.  I don't know Mr. Nobles, but he sure looks smart and hard-working. 

I know we're all going to be keeping a watchful eye on District 52 -- and on Bill Nobles.  Will Jeff Brandes?

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For whatever it's worth to you, I do not think Sarah Palin is ultimately going to run for president.  Lord help me, I agree with Alex Castellanos:  

Palin knows that if she were to run for president, she would be surrounded at every turn by the media — a journalistic pack that she would believe was out to stop her. She doubts that would be helpful to getting her message out. What she may be trying to determine on this bus tour is whether she can keep reporters enough at bay to interact with people. So far, the jury is out.

Alex Castellanos, a GOP strategist, said Palin may have already decided that, while her goal is to defeat Obama, she is not the candidate to do it. Instead, she is choosing a role between “everything and nothing,” a role as an energizer. Her challenge, he said, is not whether to run but whether to lead. She is now the embodiment of Republican grievances.

It's a little bit like the Huckabee thing: the lead-up to the run (the fawning, the recruiting, the speculation) is all a lot more fun than the actual run.  And the money in TV and that sort of thing is a lot nicer than living out of a bus for a year and a half in Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire and probably Florida.

Everyone will be profoundly disappointed when she announces that she won't run.  But just because she's not running doesn't mean she's going away.  You ain't seen the last of Sarah yet. 

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The Supreme Court gave John Ashcroft a pass.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out damage claims against former Attorney General John Ashcroft over an American Muslim's arrest, but four justices said the case raises serious questions about post-9/11 detentions under a federal law intended to make sure witnesses testify.

Yes, "serious questions," sure.  Let's all be very, very serious. 

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What the hell did Congressman Anthony Weiner do?  Something with Twitter?  

A naked photo?  I don't get it.  I mean, really.  I read the TPM thing there... and... I'm still lost.  Sorry.  Don't get it.  

 -- More later -- 

Gone Fishin' -- Back Soon

I know -- it's been a wasteland here... and over at Clintonaut, too.

Although it has been busy at work, busier at home, I have a pretty okay excuse: we're headed to Arkansas on Thursday.  We'll be back on Monday.   

You know, the thing about keeping up with the writing, at least for me, is sometimes you need to step back for a few days, get a fresh perspective.  I've been feeling a little burned out, lately -- both in this political world and the fiction/essay world.  Sometimes all it takes is some new scenery to re-fire the imagination. 

If I don't check in from the road, I'll talk to you next week.  Stay safe, friends and neighbors.

 

Our Dysfunctional Relationship with Hard Work

A lot of the problem with politics today is too many people and not enough original material.  Think about the leaders you know -- on both sides of the political spectrum.  Even if you just pay a little bit of attention, you can probably recite a lot of the language. 

Liberals are tax-and-spend, weak-kneed hippies, devoted to a president who's probably a Muslim.

Conservatives are extremist zealots hell-bent on injecting their religious principles into the DNA of whatever's left of the government they want to slash and burn.

It's so easy to get caught up in the language of one side or the other, too, that when you finally hear a refreshing voice speaking about something that actually matters -- and saying something new -- then it can be a bit startling. 

Do yourself a favor.  Go read the testimony of Mike Rowe, host of "Dirty Jobs" on the Discovery Channel, to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.  Then check out his iReport piece for CNN: 

I will confess at the outset that I have been a regular watcher of "Dirty Jobs" -- before we got rid of our cable (sorry, Discovery Channel). 

Mike Rowe is spot-on, by the way.

We have a dysfunctional relationship with work.  We've become disconnected in a fundamental way from the people who do those kinds of jobs.

We're celebrating short-cuts.  That's what we do as a society.

The kinds of jobs he's talking about are the kinds of jobs he showcases on "Dirty Jobs" -- the kinds of jobs that, as he says, "make civilized life possible."

Now, I don't know if I agree that the skills gap is a "far more insidious problem" than nine or ten percent unemployment -- but I do know that a country as innovative as America is supposed to be ought to be able to untangle that problem. 

I think it's interesting that he's pitching a PR campaign to kind of re-brand this sort of work (and he makes it no secret he has his own campaign going...).  He's right.  We branded college education as the gold standard, and everything else some sort of substandard consolation prize.  From his testimony:

In general, we're surprised that high unemployment can exist at the same time as a skilled labor shortage. We shouldn't be. We've pretty much guaranteed it.

In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We've elevated the importance of "higher education" to such a lofty perch that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled "alternative." Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as "vocational consolation prizes," best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree. And still, we talk about millions of "shovel ready" jobs for a society that doesn't encourage people to pick up a shovel.

I'm not one of these guys that thinks he has an answer for every problem in the world.  I don't.  And I appreciate that Mike Rowe has a little humility -- and a little humor -- about this whole thing.  It's easy to say, "well, let's just do X, Y, and Z, and the whole thing will be fixed!"  The world is far too complicated for easy answers. 

Besides, easy is boring. 

That said, I have spent a lot of time wondering about the apparently chronic sorry state of American infrasturcture, combined with the apparently chronic sorry state of jobs in America.  Now Mike Rowe is telling me about a skills gap. 

I'm going to say it again: doesn't this problem cry out for a Civilian Conservation Corps-style (or even AmeriCorps-style, if you like) effort?  We have an 11 million jobs shortfall.  Job seekers are stuck in unemployment longer than ever before.

Can't we re-purpose our out-of-work workers to fix America?  

I want to close this post on a personal note, because it spoke to me in a very personal way.  First of all, I am not blind to the irony of a guy sitting behind a computer writing a blog about hard work at the end of a day where he sat behind a computer, and telephone, and paper, and pens. 

It's not that I don't work hard -- it's not that what I do is not important.  I take a lot of pride in what I do.  I have faith that I make a difference. 

But it's not the bricks-and-mortar work -- the "shovel-ready" work, as Mike Rowe says -- that is so desperately needed in America today.  Like Rowe's grandfather, my grandfather worked hard and did a lot of things well.  Same with my great-uncle.  In my early childhood, I thought those guys could do anything.

My father is like that, too.  A remarkable, strangely beautiful way of understanding how things work, come apart, and go back together to work... and almost always work better. 

America doesn't need more bloggers like me.  They need more people like my father, my grandfather, like Mike Rowe's grandfather he talked about in his testimony. 

I hope we find them, and cultivate and celebrate what it is they have to offer us (only our way of life).  And I hope we find them soon. 

Offer Me Alternatives and I Decline

Well, it's finally Friday, and if you believe some folks, there's a lot more finality to it than just the end of the week.

As square an organization as the Centers for Disease Control had some fun with the Apocalypse, urging people to prepare for the coming Zombie Apocalypse.

The Today Show -- I grant you, not exactly the epicenter of hard-hitting news -- had what I guess was supposed to be a good time ripping on the Apocalypse.

Columnists everywhere are having a blast poking fun at the Rapture (this guy in Santa Monica managed to tie it into the Schawarzenegger infidelity deal; tres bon, sir!  A two-fer.  You're a credit to your profession.)

If you came here looking for me to take a snarky swipe at Reverend Camping or his followers for their belief in what may or may not happen tomorrow around 6:00 pm, then you've come to the wrong blog.  Sorry.

The CDC thing is funny and all... but don't they have something better to do?  We're told that though cancer rates are decreasing generally, cancer in children is increasing.  Violent deaths -- murder, suicide -- cost Americans $47 billion a year.  That's quite a tab for a country with the deficit problem we have.  There's apparently an "epidemic" of insufficient sleep, which is sort of zombie-esque, I suppose.  More than 30% of Hispanic people do not have any health insurance, and one in ten adults reports episodes of depression. 

Those are all CDC statistics, by the way. 

Here in Pinellas County, the St. Petersburg Times reminds us that "[o]f those without permanent homes in the county, 40 percent are younger than 18..."

The story continues:

According to the 2011 point-in-time count conducted on the night of Jan. 23 by volunteers for the Pinellas County Coalition for the Homeless, 5,887 people were without homes, compared with 5,949 a year earlier.

Just as a quick disclaimer, we stepped in and helped with this count at my daytime gig.

Hey, anyone checked in with Japan lately where a chunk of the country had an actual disaster?

Okay, I know what you're thinking: lighten up, dude -- it's just a media campaign.  Yeah, it is.  And it's a shame that it take a media campaign about zombies to get Americans prepared for a real disaster when one of Japan's magnitude just hit a few weeks ago. 

Fine, I'll chill out.  Here's what I think.  I think that nothing apocalyptic will happen tomorrow.  I think it'll be another Saturday.  My guess is it'll be sometime in the afternoon before I remember that it's supposed to be the Rapture and then I'll forget again.  That should tell you everything you need to know about my good fortune and my wonderful life and my fantastic family.

What we shouldn't do is forget what really matters.  And we should get ourselves prepared, especially here in Florida with hurricane season starting up.    

By the way, I don't think Camping should be taking money from folks who are withdrawing their life savings and sending it to his radio program.  I think that's pretty crummy, and when nothing happens tomorrow, he damn well better send it all back, or at the very least donate it to charity.

The Grifter Strikes Again: Rick Scott Signs Anti-Voting Bill Into Law

I see that Howard Dean is on the record as saying that Florida is "very, very winnable" for President Obama in his 2012 re-election bid. 

In fairness to Governor Dean, he made the comment before Florida Governor Rick Scott signed this breathtakingly bad elections bill -- what can really only be called an "anti-election" bill -- into law.

But election supervisors, who run elections in Florida, say the state's voter registration database is highly accurate and warn Scott that the changes could cause chaos and confusion at the polls next year. The League of Women Voters says it will suspend voter-registration activity in Florida because the bill requires such groups to register with the state and face fines of up to $1,000 for mistakes.

The bill cuts days of early voting from 15 to eight, imposes fines on third-party groups that fail to submit voter registration forms within 48 hours, and requires some voters who have moved to cast provisional ballots, a change most likely to affect college students.

The bill wipes out a four-decade-old policy in Florida that allowed voters to update their legal address when they vote. Republicans call that an invitation to fraud, so the new law allows only voters who have moved within the same county to update their addresses.

Even Scott's chief elections expert, Secretary of State Kurt Browning, would not say whether the change was a good idea.

"Not going there," Browning said.

Yeah, thanks for the clarity, Kurt.  Apparently nobody's going there, if by "there" you mean "polls on election day".  

Some of the low-lights of this atrocity, with my own personal touch on the headers:

• Early voting?  What, you gotta work, or something? (You know... if you had a job).  Early voting is reduced to 8 days from 15.  Remember, Obama won Florida in very large part thanks to early voting.
• Why do you move around so much? What are you, a vagrant?  Or a, you know, student?  Voters who have moved since the last election can only update their status at the polls if they moved within the same county.  I'm not so sure how this affects military families, by the way.
• Whatchoo complainin' about, sugar tits?  Vote-schmote.  Now go get me a beer.  Voters who have changed their last name since the last election will likely have to cast a provisional ballot.  Let's see... what demographic changes their last name frequently?  Oh, yeah.  Women.  That is to say, women who get married.  Happy honeymoon.  Hope you didn't want to vote.
• I think it's pretty clear we don't respect women, so up yours, League of Women Voters!  Third-party groups registering new voters are faced with unprecedented red tape and unmanageable fines.  The LWV has already said they're getting out of the voter registration business.

Well, I'd love to describe for you in excruciating detail my shock and amazement.  I'd love nothing more than to chronicle my disappointment -- my outrage!  Outrage! 

I can't, because it's not there.

This is what we asked for.  This. Is. What. We. Asked. For. 

Rick Scott ran for governor as a guy who would slash taxes and gut government, who would be a booster for big business interests and kick aside any semblance of bi-partisanship.  He's done pretty well (frankly, I'm surprised he and the legislature didn't do more.  But then, there's always next session...). 

What he didn't overtly campaign on, but what remained an underlying theme of his campaingn was a sense of almost ravenous partisanship.  It actually wasn't that hard to see -- the dog whistles and wink-winks of ultra-right social principles combined with the dark magicial thinking of the tea-party economic "platform," such as it is.

I knew when Senator Bennett (R-Bradenton) talked about this bill that Governor Scott would sign it, despite the fact that Bennett's claims around it were absurd.  This bill is good for Republicans.  It's bad for Democrats. 

It's bad for Democrats, and Rick Scott is a right-wing conservative Republican.  Help a constituency who generally votes Democrat?  Are you kidding me? 

This is a grave disappointment, and it's undemocratic at best.  What's going to get to me are the indignant -- indignant, I say! -- columnists and Very Serious media types in Florida who will dedicate a column, maybe two to it, and then forget it.  What do you bet Troxler says "good grief" at some point?  (Too late!)  Daniel Ruth will call Rick Scott "Governor Skeletor (R-Some-Quasi-Funny-Run-on-Thing-That-Describes-Scott-as-Evil-or-Whatever)".  The Editorial Board of the Times will pen a very heavy piece Taking the Governor to Task. 

Carl Hiaasen will lament the sorry state of affairs.

Leonard Pitts will write a must-read on how we continue to oppress minorities (which this bill does). 

We bloggers will get angry, write some posts. 

Then what? 

You know what? I don't know.  I really don't.  My guess is it will fade into the recesses of recent history until election day next year, when thousands and thousands of people go to vote and realize they can't.  By then it'll be too late.

Off the Radar Clarify Edition

My Huck post wasn't very good -- I realize that.  Sorry.  One of the things I meant to say is, I think Huckabee bowing out of the 2012 presidential race is a sign of something interesting. 

There's been a lot of words about the evident split in the early GOP candidates, between the Serious People (ostensibly the following: Mitt Romney, Mitch Daniels, John Huntsman, Tim Pawlenty, Haley Barbour when he was in it) and the Side Show Candidates (definitely the following: Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul).  

I'm a little more interested in a different sort of split, and that is the one between what I call the Sharks and the Jets.  Nice, right?

Initially, this looks like a rough split between the Serious People and the Side Show, but I'm not so sure there aren't differences.  

See, I think the only split in the Republican Party that matters is the one in the base.  Look at those rubes in South Carolina again at the tea partier rally.  They wanted Donald Trump.  Why?  Because Trump was a Shark -- he was going after Obama for all he was worth, teeth bared, ready to embark on a presidential feeding frenzy.  It didn't matter what the issue was -- birth certificate? Affirmative action?  Who cares! -- just so long as Obama was made Public Enemy Number One.

The Shark Candidate fulfills the need in grassroots Republicans to find fault with Obama no matter what.  Universal healthcare?  It's socialism!  (Nevermind that "Obamacare" is a blueprint of the plan Mitt Romney -- a Jet, more on this in a minute -- implemented in Massachusetts as Governor.)  War in Afghanistan?  Obama owns it!  Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?  Obama caused it, and didn't clean it up fast enough!  Not enough jobs?  Obama, Obama, Obama.  Whatever the problem, Obama is the cause. 

On the other side are Jets.  Jets want to "fly above" the messy fray of constantly attacking Obama over political losers like his birth certificate and where he went to school (the 2008 version of this, by the way, was the Reverend Wright distraction, and Mrs. Obama saying she was "proud of America").  I can't know this for certain, but I suspect the Jet candidates believe that much of this extremism is rooted in not just financial insecurity, but pretty clearly in racism. 

Look at an obvious Jet candidate: say, John Huntsman.  Former Ambassador to China (Obama's Ambassador to China, actually).  Pretty serious guy, right?  Right.  You think a guy like that wants to get tied to a Donald Trump?  A Sarah Palin?  Michele Bachmann?  He's a presidential candidate, not a game show contestant. 

My Sharks and Jets theory helps me explain why Haley Barbour dropped out.  Haley -- for all his idiotic racism -- I think at least fancied himself a Serious Person.  A Jet, if you will. 

Mike Huckabee did, too (whether he actually was or not may be up for debate; I'm suggesting this is how these guys thought of themselves).  I've seen Mike Huckabee up close and personal.  He doesn't want to get nasty.  Oh, he will, and he has, but he doesn't want to.  I think the few times Huckabee dipped his toe into the birtherism thing, he was probably very uncomfortable (the whole anti-colonialist thinking comment, raised in Kenya, blah blah).  This isn't a defense of his words or behavior, by the way -- what he said was abhorrent.  This is not a commentary on the great and good heart of Mike Huckabee, which does not exist. 

This was all about cold political calculation.

What I'm saying is, Huckabee realized he's going to have to move into a zone he'd be very uncomfortable in if he wanted to run the primary gauntlet.  How do you whip up a bunch of weirdos who a few weeks ago believed Obama to be not born in this country and/or a Muslim (many of whom still do believe that), and talk about the shortcomings of job creation, health care, immigration, the economy, wars... Sounds like a bridge too far to me.  Both he and Barbour have clearly taken stock of who the GOP primary is, what's in their soul, and I think they don't like the feeding frenzy of Sharks that they saw.  

Time to Jet.

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Air Force One had to abort a landing due to poor visibility.  Kind of scary, but if anyone knows how to fly a plane, it's those guys. 

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Leave it to those guys in Bryant, Arkansas to cheat.  Another quality misdirection kind of play.

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Florida Governor and hospital grifter Rick Scott doesn't even care that nonsense legislation restriction abortion rights has nothing to do with creating all those jobs he promised.

And really, why should he?  This is who we asked for, Florida.  Please to enjoy.

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You know what took me kind of by surprise?  The whole Arnold Schwarzenneger love child thing.

Like Mustang Bobby, I don't much care about what folks have going on in their private lives, and like I said the other day, the portrayal of his children as victims for whom we should exude a world of sympathy is a bit much. 

I don't know.  It's just weird.  I wonder if we'll ever get to a place where this kind of thing matters less and less...

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Somewhat less political, but you should read this piece by Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair.  He has cancer of the throat, the prognosis is not real good, and to kind of add insult to injury, he has lost his ability to speak. 

Ever since I've been tinkering around on my other blog, and reading more blogs about writing and from writers, I have been thinking more and more about storytelling. 

I have more thinking to do on storytelling. 

 -- More later --

Huckster Out

One of the very first posts I ever wrote on this blog was about Mike Huckabee and how bat-shit insane he really is.  It was about the Huckabee's creepy weirdo "covenant marriage":

The process the Huckabees used to actually go through with this inauspicious reaffirmation of life-long bliss eerily resembled the nutty mass weddings carried out by Unification Church “Messiah” and certifiable wackadoo, Reverend Sun Myung Moon.  Some 6,500 Arkansans filled the arena to witness the incarnation of Arkansas’ 2001 Covenant Marriage Law.  One could almost conjure the image of 6,500 country folk doing a creepy group-think thing as Mike and Janet answered three easy questions: Had they both participated in counseling before taking this “step”? (They had, though they’ve also had 31 years of regular-people marriage to work through their issues as well, so in a way, it’s almost not fair).  Had the proper affidavit been notarized? (It had.  Perhaps Mrs. Huckabee had taken time off from – no kidding – selling siding and windows to go on down to the local notary and take care of business.)  Did they have a copy of their marriage license? (No, they did not.  Mike had to excuse himself from the crowd of 6,500, run out to the truck, fish around in the glove compartment and find the damn thing. Fine, not really.  But wouldn’t it have been perfect if he had?)

Crazy as a shit house rat, yes. 

But stupid, no.  Politically tone-deaf, no. 

I will admit to holding my breath a little bit on the Huckabee thing, as to whether he was going to run for President.  I am glad he is not.  Not because I think he could beat Obama so handily -- I think it's clear even Huckabee realizes he can't -- but because if anyone could, it'd be Huckabee. 

It's easy to laugh at Mike Huckabee (I clearly do it all the time).  But you do so at your own peril.  The guy has a strategic and cunning political mind, and it is not to be underestimated.  And it frequently is. 

The GOP field for the nomination in 2012 is starting to look like the bar scene on Tatooine, as Eugene Robinson pointed out.

Who in the hell are these guys?

What are they doing here?

I realize you'll never get the inside scoop from a Republican, but you have to wonder just how demoralized these guys are.

[NOTE: to prove my point on the demoralization thing, I had a prominent Republican ask me a few days before bin Laden was killed, "How's Obama workin' out for ya'?"  I'll spare you my answer, which was satisfactory, I assure you.  When I asked him what his beef was with Obama, he said -- I'm not making this up -- "gas prices."  A few days after bin Laden was killed, the same Republican said to me, "Yeah, so your guy got one terrorist, big whoop."  He then proceeded to make a bigoted "joke".  Not making any of that up.  But I tell it to give you insight into the troubled, sad mind of the dejected Republican voter.  These guys got nobody.]

Hey, look, I don't think I'm writing Huckabee's obituary.  I have a sinking feeling we've not seen the last of the Huck.  But for now, I can put him out of my mind. 

So.  Who's next?

Finally Friday I Won't Go, Go, Go Edition

I've got to tell you: this federal employee has more guts than me.  Although she is in a pretty tight spot. 
I have a soft spot for my fellow communications/PR folks, and I hope it either works out for her at the National Zoo, where her job is on the cut list, or somewhere else.  I'm sure after this level of publicity, she'll be okay.

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It's my very real hope that this is the last thing I ever link to regarding Donald frickin' Trump.

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Beach Peanuts has a post that tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the administration of Florida Governor Rick Scott. 

And if you're not sick to your stomach after reading it, you might want to do a self-examination for a soul.

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In my devilish dreams, I'm sometimes a high-roller lobbyist, living the good life. 

But even being the best lobbyist can have its drawbacks.

In the final days of the legislative session, lawmakers amended a bill to protect children from sexual abuse that gave $1.5 million to Lauren's Kids, a nonprofit run by the daughter of Ron Book, the Tallahassee uber-lobbyist from Miami.

The problem is, according to all accounts, neither of the Books asked for the money. The bill, HB 215, says the money must be used to finance a 24-hour abuse hotline and pay for sexual abuse prevention education in schools — programs already offered by Lauren's Kids without state funding.

The money the Books did ask for but did not receive: $3 million to finance the cost of relocating victims of sexual assault who are too threatened to remain at home.

I hate it when people give me $1.5 million I didn't ask for.

Kidding aside, it's a shame that there's this mess, because it's not his daughter's fault, or the fault of her foundation. 

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It's finally Friday.  I know it don't come in a shot glass.

 

Music inspired by my awesome wife (she found the song and video; she's not in rehab).

Awake the Blogger

I got a lot of good, thoughtful, provocative comments on my post about Awake the State and the protest outside the offices of Jeff Brades.  The comments on the post generally take issue with what I wrote, though I did get some through other media which supported my hypothesis. 

Normally I'd just let this go but I think it's too important -- not to amplify my position, but to insure the point of the commenters is communicated well and fairly.  I believe in equal time.  What the hell good is a blog and being able to write if you can't articulate your position in a dialogue with people who are good enough to read what you have to say and thoughtful enough to provide a counter-point.

First of all, I think I made it pretty clear I'm no fan of Representative Brandes.  My exact words were:

I don't like Jeff Brandes.

On this point, I think we all agree!  And really, isn't that enough common ground to build an understanding and friendly discussion?  I think so.

Where I got sideways with folks is the timing of protesting Brandes and the wisdom of choosing Brandes to protest.  Here's what I said:

But see, that's the thing.  Rep. Brandes had nothing to do with the budget, except vote for it.  He's a very junior, newly elected Representative.  I am forced to wonder if House Speaker Dean Cannon even knew his name going into session. 

Look, in my view, protests accomplish something.  They're not protesting in North Africa and the Middle East because Facebook and Twitter make it so easy.  They're trying to foment change.  They are hunting democracy, even as their oppressive regimes hunt them.

I stand by that. 

However, it turns out that some of my commenters take issue with the idea that the protest outside of Brandes' office didn't accomplish anything.  This from Michael Fox:

And why aren't any of the accounts including the fact that his legislative aid tried to strong arm the organizers into not holding the event, they made an appointment with organizers, and then ran away: closing the office early so they didn't have to face his constituents? Pretty cowardly.

TomTito1 makes a similar point within his comment as well:

It was a huge success and well worth the effort. Hundreds of energetic pickets and thousands of passing motorists who honked horns or gave a thumbs up sent a message to potential candidates. He may face a tough primary opponent as well as a strong Democratic candidate.

Awake the State attempted to meet with Brandes to discus his record. Instead of listening to constituents Brandes locked up his office and his staff cleared out early. Many of the protesters had made the mistake of voting for Scott and Brandes but are now watching government more closely.

If nothing else, the Awake the State folks clearly got his attention.  I agree with Michael Fox and believe I referred to the closing of the office as a "cheap move" in my response. 

If TomTito1 is right and Brandes faces a tough primary challenger, even better. 

Though I disagreed with TomTito1 that Brandes was "held accountable" by the protest -- he'll be held accountable when he loses his re-election bid in 2012 -- I would say that if the protest got folks to watch "government more closely," then it was wildly successful and I stand corrected. 

Tim offers some information as well that is worth considering, starting with this:

We organized a protest of Bank of America last month. With just 3 days planning we got 50 people out there - 10 of them actually withdrew over $150K in accounts from the bank.

Okay, I am getting out of the telling-people-what-I-think-of-protests business, but when I saw this, I admit I sighed inwardly (click here if you want to see why; I am sure you can put it all together). 

However, the next part of that paragraph is outstanding:

Good leaders aren't born in a vacuum, they're born out of movements like this. Especially if they're on the progressive side. A guy like Brandes can afford to drop $150K from his $14 million dollar fortune to help himself win an election. Most progressive candidates can not. They instead rely on people power, which is what we're trying to provide.

100% true. 

True, true, true.  This is air-tight, and I thank Tim for illustrating the point so well.  I also agree with the later part of his comment in which he says progressives always start too late.  That's true, too -- and if this is getting ready early, then all the better.

I want to make clear one last point which seemed to be a recurring theme in the comments.

Tim: We researched his voting record, and as Doug states, he towed the party line on all but 2 votes. Let's be clear here, Brandes is no moderate.

Douglas Hickman: Oh my god, he voted right 2 times out of 40 and big deal he got a ACLU award for one of those. Douglas Hickman

TomTito1: His single reasonable vote is nothing to brag about and had no effect on the outcome.

The guy did vote the right way on the TANF drug testing thing, and he did get the ACLU Defender of Freedom award for it.  I wrote about that in the original post because it was true.  It helped demonstrate the point that Brandes (and his leadership, who wants him re-elected) was smart enough to throw us a bone, one might say, give him that false veneer of being a moderate.  Guarantee you he'll have that in his re-election ads. 

Just because I wrote it didn't mean I was trying to amplify it.  I'll concede I wasn't clear enough and I could have illustrated my point in a better way.  The point was not to argue that Brandes is a moderate -- he's not.  The point was to illustrate that he's not an idiot -- he's smart.  (This is as opposed to someone like Peter Nehr, who I think is genuinely... slow, and has done things to demonstrate the truthfullness of that very clearly.)

Brandes is smart, and Brandes knows the score. 

Look, if the Awake the State team can keep up the momentum, keep up the energy, no one will be more pleased than me.  I promise you.  Your comments have given me great hope.  I'll be watching.

Thanks for commenting on the post, everyone -- and thanks for, in many instances, setting me straight.  As always, I appreciate your coming by and reading.

 

Almost Friday All-American Reject Edition

Just a great bunch of comments on my post about Awake the State and Jeff Brandes.  I hope those guys know I appreciate their stopping by and commenting. 

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I just found out that one of these guys has been spotted down in a canal out by my work.

Guess where I'm going on my lunch break.

Don't worry.  I'll be good.

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There's usually good stuff at the Florida Progressive Coalition -- but dantilson has a must-read up.

Fortunately, there are ways to fight back and make the manipulators pay. You can use the Internet to find out who these companies and organizations are, then let them know that their actions come with reactions – like you not giving them a dime of your money.

And you can make the elected officials that do their bidding pay double: first, by letting them know you’re on to and outraged with them, via emails, phone calls, letters to newspapers, appearances at protests; and then most importantly, by voting them out of office in 2012 and restoring some two-party balance to what has become a GOP Wild West Show.

So if you or anyone you know remain uninvolved in this opposition movement, make note. Y’all are hereby deputized…

Kind of makes a good argument against my "don't-protest-Brandes" stuff, huh?

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Former Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, is in hot water.

The Senate ethics committee on Thursday took the rare step of asking federal agencies to investigate a former colleague, saying it found “substantial and credible evidence” that Nevada Republican John Ensign had broken federal laws while trying to cover up an extramarital affair with a political aide.

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Everything you need to know about the Common/Fox News deal.

Jon Stewart, of course.

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It's almost Friday.  Who has to know?

Off the Radar The Record is Straight Edition

Always nice when the high rollers stop by for a visit.

John Feehery, the proprietor of The Feehery Theory -- as well as the President of Communications and Director of Government Affairs for Quinn Gillespie and Associates, and a former aide to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, former Majority Whip Tom Delay, and House Minority Leader Bob Michel -- stopped by with a comment on my last Almost Friday entry.

Well, a correction, really:

FYI...I never lobbied for BP and I haven't done pr work for them in a six months. Not that I am against the notion, just that it isn't accurate.

Let me start with a sincere apology: I'm sorry, John.  That was sloppy work on my part.

If anyone is curious, I checked and with respect to the lobbying, that appears 100% accurate.  As for the PR comment, I was working from an article in the The Buzz that's nearly a year old:

The husband of Sen. George LeMieux's chief of staff has been hired to help BP navigate its public relations nightmare.

Fair enough to say that John and I come at politics from two different ends of the spectrum.  That doesn't mean he deserves to have the wrong information written about him.  I do regret the error.

And in the spirit of making it up to you, John, allow me to link to your two latest pieces, both of which are very good.

The first is on politics and confidence -- and what that means in 2012 -- and I can immediately think of a half-dozen folks who should do nothing else until they read this piece.

The next is on Newt Gingrich.  Talk about bringing back some memories... If anyone has even a passing interest in the developing presidential field on the GOP side, they should start with this piece on Gingrich.

And no, friends and neighbors, I'm not just sucking up to John because he's the President of Communications and Director of Government Affairs for Quinn Gillespie and Associates and I think he needs to open a Gulfport, Florida branch office. 

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Speaking of Gingrich -- as truly morally bankrupt a politician as you will find -- he has announced, via Twitter, that he is seeking the GOP nomination for president in 2012. 

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An interesting piece on Twitter from Jack Shafer at Slate.  Why do smart people tweet dumb things, and then get in trouble?  Read Jack's article and see what you think.  I tend to agree with him.  I would add that I see Twitter as a tool better geared towards promote things -- links, pictures, and um, presidential campaigns -- than communication of original content and ideas.  

That said, you can follow me on Twitter @bkirby816.  Don't hold your breath for any scandalous tweets from me, though.

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It's one of the things I can't stand about the HuffingtonPost anymore: the celebrity crap and the headlines that make you want to staple your eyes shut. 

Yes, what will become of those poor children of a multi-millionaire actor/governor and a Kennedy?

Look, I get it: divorce is bad for kids no matter who your parents are.  Inasmuch as I feel bad for children of divorce, I feel bad for the Schwarzenegger children.  Inasmuch as I've been through divorce (no kids involved), I feel bad for the family all the way around. 

But I think I'll sleep okay tonight. 

Except for the haunting images of Bristol Palin.  You can't un-see that, my friends.  (Do yourself a favor: don't look.)

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Please, please, please don't tell me anything bad about Chipotle.  I practically live off their chicken burritos.

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Pretty much all she wrote for Raj.  You don't want to screw around with insider trading.

 -- More later --

Rooting for the Bad Guys: Please Don't Make Me Defend Jeff Brandes

Peter Schorsch has a post on his Battleground Tampa Bay website about Representative Jeff Brandes (R-52).  It's worth unwrapping this post and looking a little more closely.

But first, the caveats and exceptions! 

I don't like Jeff Brandes.  Though I concede the point that Bill Heller's campaign was a disaster in a heavily Republican year, I thought the Brandes Campaign was unnecessarily mean to a pillar of the community (don't start with me, either; I am fully aware that many would argue that Brandes simply ran an aggressive campaign.  Fine, but when you mix aggression with stuff that is just factually incorrect, that's what you call mean.)  I don't like that he doled out extra cash for himself at the end of the campaign to continue to bash Heller (yes, I recognize Democrats have done it, too; I still don't like it.)

I don't like that he voted for "leadership funds" -- the thing Troxler has gone off the rails about -- and I thought his claim -- in the midst of parrotting GOP talking points -- that Troxler was practicing "irresponsible journalism" in calling him out on his support was downright laughable.

This is less about Representative Brandes, but I don't particularly care for the fact that voters would give up a St. Petersburg icon for this guy. 

Idiots. 

So let's get to it.  As Peter says:

On Tuesday, Tampa Bay progressives will be joining with their colleagues throughout the state for a second set of 'Awake the State' protests and rallies to protest the just wrapped-up 2011 Legislative Session.  A protest outside of Rep. Jeff Brandes’ legislative office is planned.

Unfortunately, the protesters are wasting their time.

Yes, Rep. Brandes voted for the Republican budget.  Yes, Rep. Brandes voted for most of the Republican legislation progressives hate.  So if protesting Republicans is your deal, have at it.

I read Peter's stuff and frequently I find myself mentally nudging him, questioning something, karmically pushing him in a different direction.  Every now and then he and I will engage in a manner of conversation about one issue or another. 

In this instance, I am forced to agree with him wholeheartedly.

Again: it is not because I like Jeff Brandes so much.  I don't.  It's that I'm not sure what we're doing with the Awake the State stuff.

Please, please don't misunderstand me: I think it's a great idea.  I think it's a wonderful idea, and if you don't, you clearly aren't familiar with the legislative session we just... experienced.  We need grassroots activism, and we need it fired up.

My question is around targeting and timing. 

I got the alert about the event outside Rep. Brandes' office.  Come show up!  Protest the budget! 

Um.  Okay.

But see, that's the thing.  Rep. Brandes had nothing to do with the budget, except vote for it.  He's a very junior, newly elected Representative.  I am forced to wonder if House Speaker Dean Cannon even knew his name going into session. 

Look, in my view, protests accomplish something.  They're not protesting in North Africa and the Middle East because Facebook and Twitter make it so easy.  They're trying to foment change.  They are hunting democracy, even as their oppressive regimes hunt them. 

Brandes didn't get to be a State Representative for nothing, either.  He must be aware that he's in a political split district (relatively; I mean, they did send Bill Heller to the legislature, after all).  I am sure the man knows that his Democratic and liberal constituents hate this budget deal -- which, in fairness to the Awake the State folks, is pretty shitty. 

Schorsch is right: Brandes was awarded a "Defender of Freedom" designation by the ACLU (of all things) for opposing drug testing of TANF recipients.  I may have a lot of qualms with Mr. Brandes, but that's one for which I would gladly shake his hand.  His opposition was a good call -- and his opposition of his leadership on the issue was brave. 

Here's what I'm worried about: we're going to protest the likes of Jeff Brandes, and others (I assume) well over a year out from the election. 

You know what I'd really like to do?  Two things.  One, instead of protesting a guy who made a vote we all knew he'd make, go out and find Jeff Brandes' Jeff Brandes.  Know what I mean?  I want Democrats to announce a candidate that gives Jeff the shivers, makes him start working hard to defend that budget vote. 

And the other is, I want that "protest" to move down to District 53.  Only let's not protest.  Let's welcome home Representative Rick Kriseman from one of the worst legislative sessions, ever, and thank him for taking a stand on the tough issues, and for introducing good legislation. 

Let's show Floridians what we're for, not just what we're against.

Talk about a good reason to get everyone together.  

Finally Friday The GOP Has a No Good, Very Bad Week Edition

This happened in South Carolina.

It was the first Republican Presidential Debate, and if you thought my previous warnings to my GOP friends and neighbors were condescending and hyperbolic, then you may want to think again.

It may have been the moment when former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson extended his riff about how his reality TV show would be different from Sarah Palin’s “crawling on her hands and knees up the ice floe in Alaska.”

Or perhaps it was when Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) explained why not everyone would use heroin if it were legalized.

Either way, the Libertarian-minded iconoclasts who bookended the stage here Thursday night at the first Republican presidential primary debate provided plenty of highlights and some substance, but also took the forum wildly off track at times.

Whoo, boy. 

Yes, "wildly off track," indeed.  And the South Carolinian Republican powers that be are none too thrilled about it.

“I’m not going to comment on that,” Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) said when asked about Paul’s heroin comments.

I know it seems like "Paul's heroin comments" would be some sort of obscure reference to The Beatles, but it is not.  Apparently Ron Paul said that heroin should be legalized.  And that if (when?) it is, not everyone will become a junkie! 

It's not so much that Dr. Paul believes this -- he is a Libertarian, after all.  It's that it came up at all in the first GOP debate. 

Things got worse, if you can believe that.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) blanched at talk by Johnson of legalized abortion and by Paul of allowing gays to marry.

“I disagreed with the idea that there should be any taxpayer funded abortions, or the federal government redefining marriage,” DeMint said. “I wasn’t quite sure if I was hearing that or not.”

Listen to it again, Jim.

I'll have to check in with my friend Jason soon.  He and I had some fairly in-depth talks back in '08 about whether the Republican Party was headed for a split -- a division between the something along the lines of the tea partiers and the old line war hawks.  Somewhere in there are the social conservatives.  

It seems it is all a big mess, and the events in South Carolina didn't clarify a thing. 

# # # # 

New jobs numbers are out, and frankly it's a little confusing.  More jobs were created... but somehow the unemployment rate rose, too.  David Leonhardt of the New York Times explains it pretty well. 

Job growth was unexpectedly strong last month. The unemployment rate rose to 9 percent, from 8.8 percent, its biggest one-month increase in more than a year-and-a-half.

Which of the two numbers should you believe? The short answer is the job-growth number. The labor market appears to be improving. The rise in the unemployment rate is mostly a reflection that the rate fell by an artificially large amount over the previous several months.

Despite the recent good news in the world of national security and international affairs for the Obama Administration in a political sense, and for us all in a more literal, practical sense, I still believe the economy and jobs will be the big engine driving the 2012 election.  

This, too, is good news for the Obama Administration (and the Obama Campaign) -- but I'd hesitate to say it's enough.  As was said on NPR this morning, a gigantic back-hoe dug the jobs hole we're in now... and we're only just now filling it with hand shovels.  There is a lot of work to be done.

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I will admit that I did not understand the GOP Medicare privatization plan.  I mean, I got the general idea, but I did not understand it from a political point of view.  Unless I'm missing something big (always a possibility), I don't see a huge outcry for the privatization of Medicare. 

Anyway, that dumb idea is apparently dead and gone -- along with what I took to be their signature issue, which was the repeal of health care reform. 

I just didn't get it.  Elected Republican leaders had to know they were never going to actually repeal health reform, nor were they actually going to privatize Medicare.  Now they just look, inneffective.  Didn't somebody think of this before making the promises? 

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Yeah, I tweeted this, but talk about bad ideas: there's a bill in the Florida Legislature right now to reverse a ban on spraying sewage on farmland. 

Dookie water on your strawberries. 

That's your Florida Legislature at work.

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And if that's not crappy enough, look at what they're doing to the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, because Florida House Budget Chair J.D. Alexander is "not a terribly big fan of the research coming out. To me it's sort of milquetoast. They don't take firm positions, they take safe positions." 

No, you idiot.  They don't take positions, they present research.   

Only a Florida Republican would make an argument against government accountability.  These guys may already be drinking the dookie water.

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Incidentally, they're not all idiots in the Legislature.  Rep. Kriseman delivered 25,000 signatures -- mine included -- to the Florida House Speaker in support of his recall legislation.

Way to go, Rep. Kriseman.

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From back in Arkansas, Max Brantley reports on the reprimanding of Monica Goodling, who helped destroy the credibility of the Justice Department. 

Having been a proud employee of the Justice Department, I'm still heartbroken over that whole disgusting episode. 

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Control yourself.

Take only what you need from it.

It's finally Friday. 

Music inspired by a visit to Re/Creating Tampa.

Photographs & Memories: Bin Laden Photo Under Wraps (For Now)

Just one more post on this, and then I think it's probably time to move on to something else.  There's too much going on in the world, in America, in Florida, and even around town not to talk about it. 

So like any good liberal weenie, I don't usually disagree with Jon Stewart.  On releasing the bin Laden death photographs, I did, at least mostly (I think). 

First of all, I don't need to see the picture.  If you tell me SEAL Team Six did the job, I'm probably going to believe you.  That's just me.  I realize there's skeptics out there.  But there are also people out there who think the moon is made out of cheese, alien robots control your brain, and Obama was born in Kenya.  You can please all the people all the time.  

Stewart says that not releasing the image because it's too graphic is ridiculous given America's daily apetite for our prime time line-up of shows like NCIS, CSI: Miami, Bones, and on and on.  Watch the beginning of CSI: Miami -- a show I secretly love, which I refer to as "Pretty People with Tiny, Colorful Vials of Stuff and Loud Guns in South Florida."  It is an excellent example.  I saw the episode the other day where the guy got decapitated in the beginning sequence... and they showed it.  

Little Ben Kirby trivia: I'm a video game junkie.  Have to wean myself off the stuff or I get hooked for days and weeks at a time.  Don't work, don't eat.  Just sit there in front of the glowing TV and PlayStation, swollen thumbs, unshaven, mumbling to myself, rubbing my bleary eyes.  Did you know that I finished Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in its entirety?  Took me the better part of a year.  Totally worth it.  I loved that game, I really did.  But I am glad I finished it before Emeline was born, because there is some pretty graphic stuff in there. 

Stewart's further point -- that perhaps Americans need to be more familiar with gruesome images of war, as opposed to TV and video game junk, like me -- is well-taken.  It's a shame that we're in the midst of a Global War on Terror, and it's hard to bring to mind what that looks like.  Ask us about a scene from a video game and we're all over it.  Ask us about last night's Law & Order, we're there.  But we get uncomfortable when talking about the people who have fought and died in the name of our country and our freedom.  Whether you believe in the causes of the fights in which we are engaged, that collective discomfort simply shouldn't be.   

Stewart's other point is that it doesn't matter if the image inflames Muslim extremists -- they hate us anyway.  On this point, he is selling you short.  Extremists hate us already, he argues, this won't make them hate us any more than they already do.

I'm not buying it. 

We have troops in harm's way in Iraq, troops in Afghanistan, a presence in Libya, and really troops and personnel around the globe.  If an image of a dead bin Laden were to incite even one Muslim extremist to drive a bomb into an American encampment, it'd be one too many. 

It's not worth it.

Besides, images can largely define events.  Use your imagination -- it's not too tough.  You think bin Laden lying on the floor with a couple of holes in his head wouldn't be on banners throughout the Middle East in a heartbeat?  Only thing faster would be the t-shirts for sale down by the Washington Monument.  Why deliver ready-made marketing to either inappropriate rage overseas, or inappropriate capitalism here at home?

No, the Obama Administration made the right call: keep the gruesome images secret... at least for now.  And let other images define the moment.  I think this one is already starting to emerge as the image:

That's a remarkable picture, it's true.

But if I had my way, if I could choose the image which defined the moment, I know which one it would be.  Don't need to see the evidence of bin Laden himself.  Don't need to see the faces of the SEAL Team members.  This is it right here:

You look at that face and see if it doesn't tell you everything you need to know about what exactly happened to Osama bin Laden.

Official White House Photos by Pete Souza

The Lay of the Land: Our Politics in a Post-bin Laden World

Monday was about relief -- or joy, or victory, or glee, or somber remembrance, or thoughtful reflection, or, over-the-top celebration, or in fact whatever you wanted to feel, really, and in that moment we all kind of gave each other something of a pass.

That moment, if you haven't noticed, is over. 

The immediate reaction to this would understandably be anything from mild to serious depression.  Can't we all just get along for at least a freaking week? 

No.  We can't.

First of all, you should have known the death of bin Laden would be complicated.  In my view, the most serious issue relates to our relationship with Pakistan, a country I would point out that happens to be a nuclear power.  He resided in what amounts a military town -- roughly the Pakistani equivalent of Fort Bragg or MacDill -- for the last six years in a pretty heavily fortified compound. 

Bin Laden is gone, but al Qaeda is not.  Their next steps remain unclear, at best, which ought to make pretty much the entire civilized world nervous.  

There are the geopolitical question we're forced to ask.  What does this mean for the war in Afghanistan?  If Pakistan did in fact harbor bin Laden (as early evidence strongly suggests), what does it mean for our relationship with them?  What does this mean for whatever it was we did in Iraq?  What does this mean for the more general "War on Terror"?  We are indeed forced to ask these questions, and ask them now.

Then there are the unseemly -- but undoubtedly necessary -- political questions.  Should Obama have released the photographs of a dead bin Laden?   (It looks like they will not; for whatever it is worth, I suspect these photos will be leaked at some point and there'll be outrage -- outrage! -- and then the whole thing will blow over.  Just a guess.)  I admit to a morbid curiousity about just what kind of fight he was putting up since he was unarmed.  I'm not at all suggesting that the SEALs didn't do what they were supposed to do -- it's just a matter of logistics (was he punching them?  Trying to climb out a window?  Did he have mace, or something?  A taser?  I'm not being snarky -- I'd really kind of like to know.)  

I suspect there will be a lot of folks a lot smarter than me asking those kinds of questions and more in the days, weeks, months, and even years to come.  The political impact the answers will have is virtually unknowable.  

It's also worth noting the grinding gears of politics and government have not stopped just because an international terrorist is dead and gone halfway around the world.  Here at home the Florida Legislature has passed a budget, and it's going to take a few days (at least) to totally unwrap this one.  I suspect it will be everything you expect from this "rodeo of phonies and pimps", as Carl Hiaasen called them.

We were talking about the Campaign 2012 who's-in-who's-out just the other day (doesn't the Trump stuff seem even more silly now?).  I hate to break it to you, but that train has long since left the station, and my guess is the campaign game will continue in full force as we head towards summer.  

I'll leave you with a quick word on that.  You know, Republicans were in a bit of a spot, anyway.  Obama had released his long-form birth certificate, leaving a fairly large swath of Republicans to sort of scrounge around for something else to delegitimize him.  They looked pretty foolish.  

That was followed by Obama's skewering of Trump -- who had taken the lead in a number of early polls -- at the White House Correspondent's Association Dinner. 

That, in turn, was followed by the killing of bin Laden.  

At this point, the Republicans have to realize the earth is shifting underneath their feet.  Will they dare claim to be the party of tough national security when a man they were attempting to publicly deligitimize only days ago has delivered the metaphorical head of Public Enemy Number One on a platter?  

Republicans need not just a new strategy -- making racist, bogus, and ultimately foolish claims against the president isn't going to work any longer -- they need a new brand.  

It's early.  And no one does marketing and branding quite like the GOP, so I'm not selling them short by any stretch of the imagination.  But grassroots GOP voters ought to take a long, hard look at the current field of leaders vying to claim the party mantle and the nomination in 2012 and ask themselves some very, very serious questions.  They also need to look at the issues they care about and ask similiar questions.  I'd suggest they do it now.