The start of the 2006 running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
One of the greatest weekends in international sport is underway. At 6 AM Pacific time, the 24 Hours of Le Mans began. The 75th running of this greatest of all sports car races takes place on the eight-mile Circuit de la Sarthe course in the French countryside. Also this weekend, on Sunday, making it even bigger, is the annual Formula One US Grand Prix, as the global F1 circuit comes to America, actually, to the Indianapolis Speedway. Two great races on two of the most storied courses in the history of motorsport.
Le Mans is the greatest endurance sports car race in the world. (These days, it’s not just sports cars running, as there are two classes of Prototype cars and two classes of Grand Touring — i.e. sports — cars.)
In some ways, it is an apt metaphor for modern political campaigning. To be successful, you have to be very fast. And very enduring. The very fastest won’t win if it can’t finish the race, or even spends too much time on pit stops. The most enduring won’t if it lacks top end speed and handling.
And to succeed, you have to function as a team and a network. There are the principals, of course, in the form of the drivers. (No, no one driver drives all 24 hours at Le Mans. There are two and three drivers per car.) The best driver won’t win if the engineers and mechanics don’t do their jobs well.
Success depends upon technology, too. Audi won the P1 (Prototype 1) class and the overall race last year with new, highly efficient diesel technology. You can’t even hear the engine. International motorsport — and this is even more true of Formula One — is a seedbed of technology that later finds its way into production cars. If you fall too far behind on the tech front, you can’t succeed.
And success also depends on good fortune. Many factors beyond the control of any driver and team can make a difference. Just as in politics.
The great duel at Le Mans in the GT1 class: Corvette vs. Aston Martin. The defending Corvette champion is already out of the race. But both marques have multiple cars.
** LE MANS/F1 WEEKEND IS AT HAND. One of the greatest weekends in international sport is at hand. Tomorrow morning, I believe at 6 AM Pacific time, begins the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The 75th running of this greatest of all sports car races takes place on an eight-mile course in the French countryside. Also this weekend, making it even bigger, is the annual Formula One US Grand Prix, as the global F1 circuit comes to America, actually, to the Indianapolis Speedway. Two great races on two of the most storied courses in the history of motorsport. I’ll have more on this tomorrow.
** RUSSIA-NATO EMERGENCY CONFERENCE COLLAPSES. A day after Defense Secretary Bob Gates told his Russian counterpart that the US will go ahead with its proposed missile shield project in Eastern Europe, spurning Russia’s offer to have it in Iran-adjacent Azerbaijan, an emergency session of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels has collapsed with no agreement. The meeting was called to address tensions between the US, NATO, and Russia, and the future of a trans-European arms limitation treaty. In response, some believe that Russia will move more troops into Moldova, which is adjacent to Ukraine, a country Russia wants back in its orbit, and Romania, now a new member of NATO.
** PRETTY QUIET ON THE CALIFORNIA FRONT. And on the presidential campaign front, especially with non-Westerners in other time zones heading into the weekend. Pretty quiet, that is, except for a 550-word item criticizing me over at the San Diego Union-Tribune. Seems I’ve been spun. By liberals. Actually, I simply remember recent California political history. I suppose I’ll have to write this up, once again. Yawn.
There’s just not much on other blogs these days. To the extent they still exist. There is, of course, the big controversy over the deputy political director of the state Republican Party being from Canada. Which, to my amazement, rated a front page story in the San Francisco Chronicle, I think yesterday. I knew about it, and didn’t think it rated a daily item on NWN. We’ve got a guy from Austria who’s the governor of California. We’ve got a guy from Mexico who’s the speaker of the state Assembly. I don’t much care where the deputy political director of a state party is from. It’s interesting that California Republicans are hiring arguably senior staff from foreign countries — I think the chief operating officer is an Australian — but not very. Making threats against people who don’t like it is not too cool, however. And I suppose I’ll get into that next week.
** BUILDING BRIDGES, VIA SELLING SUBMARINES. Further guaranteeing that it is once again a major presidential issue, Russia has agreed to sell Venezuela nine submarines. Which Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez says he needs to cirumvent the coming American blockade of Venezuela. This would be, I suspect, the blockade that exists in his mind, unless he has something else in mind to provoke one. The Russian subs are not nuclear submarines, incidentally, they’re diesel electric boats.
** RAFSANJANI CALLS FOR TALKS ON IRAN NUKE, DECRIES HAMAS TAKEOVER OF GAZA STRIP.Pragmatic conservative power broker Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, leading prayers earlier today at Tehran University, called for dialogue and negotiation on the Iranian nuclear situation. Fiery hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who defeated former President Rafsanjani for the presidency but lately saw Rafsanjani’s forces make a major electoral comeback, has been pretty quiet lately. Rafsanjani also decried the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, saying it plays into Israel’s hands.
** THE NEVADA CAMPAIGN. Two candidates who could make a big impact in the Nevada Democratic presidential caucus next January impacted in the Las Vegas area the other day. Representing her husband, Michell Obama made her first visit to the Silver State and kicked off Nevada Women for Obama with a big rally in Las Vegas. (More like 500, rather than the 5000 the senator can draw.) And Governor Bill Richardson, slowly but steadily rising in the polls in Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire, spent Wednesday campaigning around the Las Vegas area. Nevada is key to Richardson’s hopes.
** SCHWARZENEGGER AND BLOOMBERG SHARE COVER OF NEW TIME MAGAZINE, HEADLINE CONFERENCE NEXT WEEK. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg share the cover of the new print edition of Time magazine, which I think hits newsstands over the weekend. The theme is a familiar one, that key states and cities are filling the void of action left by the current federal administration.
When the issue is out next week, I’ll re-run an NWN video from last fall featuring Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg saying what they say in Time. Incidentally, the two will appear next week at a University of Southern California conference on bridging partisan and ideological divides.
Chatter discussed last year on NWN about a possible Bloomberg independent presidential candidacy is up again. And a mutual friend of Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger, one Warren Buffett — the chief economic advisor to Schwarzenegger that the former action superstar jokingly said would have to do 500 sit-ups for saying that California property taxes should go up — says he’s looked into it and the Constitution wouldn’t prohibit Schwarzenegger from serving as vice president. Don’t practice holding your breath just yet.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 34th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed.
** NWN VIDEO RE-RUN. Today’s NWN video of Arnold Schwarzenegger was first published Tuesday. But because of YouTube’s extreme network processing problems, most couldn’t see it.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger encounters health care protesters
in this NWN video.
This week of swirling controversy around proposed health care reforms in California has not clarified what will happen but has made it clear that something major almost certainly will be enacted.
On Monday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger did another of his town hall meetings, this one in Chico, the rural state college town 90 miles north of the capital. After pushing his own universal health care plan, which would build on top of the existing private system, requiring all to be covered and all to have coverage, financed by “fees” on employers and medical practitioners, he took a question from a t-shirted activist about the government-directed single-payer plan. Schwarzenegger said he opposes it because it would hurt small business. Afterward, as he left, 20 protesters chanted for him to sign a single-payer bill by state Senator and fellow former actor Sheila Kuehl, and he got an earful from a woman whose friend is receiving what sounds like terrible care. But the protesters weren’t all that hostile, and Schwarzenegger defused the situation.
On Tuesday, it was Michael Moore Day, as it were, in California’s Capitol. He was in town to promote his new film, Sicko, and to stump for what he acknowledges is socialized medicine. The Oscar-winning director of the documentaries Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine, Roger and Me, and The Big One had several appearances Tuesday. After a convivial press conference with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, at which the two men did not discuss the fact they are actually pushing different versions of universal health care and Moore spoke rather kindly of Schwarzenegger, and several other appearances, including a hearing with single-payer health care author, Santa Monica Senator Sheila Kuehl, Moore spoke to a rally of some 800 people, sponsored by the California Nurses Association outside the Capitol. There he did criticize Schwarzenegger, with the nurses union organizers leading chants of “Shame on you.” (For the former action superstar, not the activist documentarian.) Moore gave an amusing but mostly fiery speech, insisting on the removal of all profit from the health care field and on the imposition of government-directed health care.
Michael Moore is a better filmmaker than a politician. He’s a good speaker, but he’s heavily rhetorical. If you don’t like left-wing pols, you’ll hate what he’s saying and how he says it, though he was much more thoughtful in his remarks and Q&A session at the premiere than at the rally. As a filmmaker, he makes his points more deftly. His new movie is very good. Given its rather grim topic, the state of health care in America, where 45 million people have no coverage and many of those who do are failed by the system, as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and others point out, it’s actually quite entertaining.
This is one movie that the insurance industry has to be hoping is seen by no one. Of course, it’s loaded up, as Moore is essentially an agitprop filmmaker, an activist. But the horror stories he shows are no less real for that. Moore chronicles, with first person witnesses, the emergence of a health insurance industry which rewards the denial of health care, even to those who’ve paid for it as part of their insurance pool. He shows how national health care systems work in Britain and Canada — yes, there are slowdowns in some cases, as in all systems, but there is no serious effort to replace those systems with what we have — contrasting them with the vast numbers of Americans who have no health care coverage, are frequently denied health care when they think they are covered, and frequently have to pay more for what they do get.
Being Moore, he goes overboard in a rather extended infomercial for the wonders of living in France, then decides to really poke a stick in the eye with a long segment about how supposedly fabulous life is in Cuba. (Which, incidentally, has been misconstrued by his built-in critics on the right, and begins with the very mordantly amusing premise that he is taking ailing 9/11 emergency workers denied care in America to Guantanamo Bay to get the actually very good free health care afforded to suspected Al Qaeda terrorists.) I’ll have a full review of the movie before it comes out at the end of the month. Notwithstanding its problems, it’s an excellent, even entertaining piece of filmmaking and will figure prominently at the next Academy Awards.
Moore is a strong single-payer advocate. Of course, there is a big problem. First, Schwarzenegger won’t sign the current legislation. Second, and most importantly — and this is what advocates aren’t really saying — there would also have to be tax increase legislation to implement the program. That requires a two-thirds vote in California’s Legislature, and legislative Republicans won’t supply the needed votes. Which would be more than a handful, because the current near unanimous Democratic vote for single-payer would be substantially less if legislators thought their votes would actually matter and they weren’t free to simply pander to some of their base constituents.
Which returns us, for the short term at least, to the familiar proposals at hand. The coalition pushing for a comprehensive package, comprised of senior citizen, labor, consumer, and some business groups, launched a second TV ad. Talks have continued throughout the week between Schwarzenegger’s people, representatives of the Democratic authors, Nunez and Senate leader Don Perata, and various stakeholders. There is a tremendous amount of internal maneuvering going on, much of it centered on what would make very tedious reading, with factions on both sides of the question of doing something big touting a legislative counsel’s opinion that Schwarzenegger’s proposed fee on doctors and other medical providers constitutes a tax, requiring a two-thirds vote. (Democratic leaders didn’t include it in their plan and most Republicans are against any fees or taxes. The legislative counsel, of course, while non-partisan, works for a Legislature that’s been controlled by Democrats for all but a few years over the past several decades.)
Schwarzenegger and some of the business groups backing a comprehensive solution would like a bill that can get a two-thirds vote. But that will be very difficult. Speaking yesterday, Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines all but ruled that out. Schwarzenegger and Democrats can come together on a bill that gets a majority vote. Which would then be the subject of a lawsuit, claiming federal preemption. This would be based on a federal court ruling in Maryland. But the Maryland case had a very different set of facts, and the ruling came from one of the most conservative courts in the nation.
Villines is also optimistic about geting something major done on health care, though, as a conservative, his view is not as expansive as others that are out there. He told me that he is extremely interested in overcoming the problem of people with pre-existing conditions being denied health coverage. Some 600,000 Californians, he says, fall into that trap, and he has ideas about how to solve that problem.
He thinks that many who are denied coverage due to preexisting conditions have lesser medical issues that should not preclude their gaining coverage. Those with more severe medical issues, says Villines, should also be covered, but their inclusion in the insurance pool should be funded by the state.
It is, as a former governor used to say, a yeasty situation.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is on the road today with
another town hall meeting, as in this NWN video, this time in the
Central Valley city of Bakersfield.
** U.S. TO PROCEED WITH EASTERN EUROPE-BASED MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM. US Secretary of Defense Bob Gates told Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov today at a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels that the US will proceed, as previously planned, with a missile defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia has strenuously objected to this move, meeting it with harsh rhetoric, claiming it is aimed at Russia rather than Iran or North Korea.
At their meeting last week at the G8 summit in Germany, Russian President Vladimir Putin startled President George W. Bush with a proposal to have the system based in the former Soviet Central Asian republic of Azerbaijan, which borders on Iran. That system would have been partially based on an already existing Russian radar array in outside Baku. It would have included major Russian participation. Something the US has said it welcomes.
** CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN LEADER ON BUDGET, HEALTH CARE, REDISTRICTING. California Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines, who took office last November, made his first appearance before the Sacramento Press Club at a luncheon today and appeared to impress the crowd with his smarts and personableness. Villines said in his talk that state budget negotiators are not close to agreement right now. Why not? Because, in his view, a $1.4 billion operating deficit in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal was expanded by another $1.2 billion in spending added by majority legislative Democrats.
The Democrats’ fiscal point man, Assembly Budget Committee chairman John Laird of Santa Cruz, was on hand and afterwards laid the blame at Schwarzenegger’s door for paying off $1 billion in bond debt, which had the effect of raising the state’s credit rating. And which is already done.
In a later conversation with Villines as he was driving home to Fresno this afternoon, he expressed optimism about getting a budget by the end of June. He had just been in a “Big Four” meeting with the other legislative leaders of both parties and noted that progress is being made on a variety of items. What will the key be, in his view, to meeting a June 30th deadline? “That $1.2 billion in added spending has to come off the table.”
Villines is also optimistic about geting something major done on health care, though, as a conservative, his view is not as expansive as others that are out there. And this is really meat for a longer piece. For now, suffice it to say that he says he is extremely interested in overcoming the problem of people with pre-existing conditions being denied health coverage. Some 600,000 Californians, he says, fall into that trap, and he has ideas about how to solve that problem.
On redistricting reform, he is also optimistic. His version of redistricting reform, which would employ an independent citizens commission to draw new district lines, moved forward last week. Although Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez has a different approach, Villines says he believes Nunez is sincere. Between Schwarzenegger, the legislative leaders, and other key players on redistricting working together, he says he expects a redistricting reform plan to emerge.
** CLINTON MADE OVER $10 MILLION LAST YEAR GIVING SPEECHES.Former President Bill Clinton made over $10 million last year in lecture fees. The previous year, he made $7.5 million. For one speech, to a business group in London, he got $450,000. Speeches for General Motors in New York and IBM in the Caribbean garnered him $200,000 a crack.
** UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE COALITION BEGINS NEW TV AD DRIVE. The Together for Health Care coaliton begins airing its second TV ad produced by consultant David Doak today in the Sacramento, Fresno, and Bakersfield markets. Its message: “Let’s get something done on health care this year.” Coalition members, who don’t agree with each other, include American Assocation of Retired People (AARP), Bay Area Council, Blue Shield of California, California Labor Federation, California Medical Association, California Teachers Association, Catholic Healthcare West, Health Net, Kaiser Permanente, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.The ad can be viewed here.
There was a lot of pushback on Connie Bruck’s somewhat critical New Yorker profile last month as being somehow a hit piece, even though Bruck is a multiple National Magazine Award-winner and best-selling author of serious books who is married to former LA Democratic Congressman Mel Levine, a noted liberal. It will be interesting to see the reaction to this. Democratic insiders I’ve talked with are concerned about Villaraigosa — a former Newsweek cover subject and one of four national chairs of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign — and of how many of his policy initiatives are essentially undone.
** PRESIDENTIALS IN CALIFORNIA, THEY WORK HARD FOR THE MONEY. The presidential campaign is not especially fascinating right now, and that’s especially so in California. The top four candidates in each party were all in the Golden State over the past week, but little news was committed. That’s because they were really here to raise money and not campaign. What public events there were were few and far between and essentially tacked on to the real schedule.
For example, Barack Obama appeared at a gas station in LA to tout his proposal, borrowed from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, for a low carbon fuel standard. Which was nice, but he’d previously unveiled it at events in the Midwest, and there was no new news hook to entice. What he was really here for was six fundraisers in two days, as he continues to raise money hand over fist.
Rudy Giuliani had the biggest public appearance, in terms of events, at Sunday’s Flag Day dinner in Orange County. However, it coincided with the series finale of The Sopranos, so there was no chance I was covering that. And it was a weekend, so that counts out most of the press right there. But Fred Thompson, still undeclared, had the biggest appearance of all, on The Tonight Show, where he showcased his amiably impressive personality but broke little new ground.
New Mexico Governor and former UN Ambassador Bill Richardson did the most campaigning, talking up light rail and renewable energy plans in LA and doing a town hall in San Jose. But his ability to lever himself into the front rank of the Democratic presidential race hinges on his ability to show well in Iowa and Nevada.
Beyond the imperative of candidates scrambling to raise money by the end of June, which coincides with the end of the second quarter, something which will mark a good sign for some campaigns and a very bad sign for others, there really isn’t much engagement between the candidates. John McCain and Mitt Romney have been scuffling on the Republican side over immigration and abortion, with McCain making the case that Romney is a flip-flopper on both, and has made pro-choice sounding statements even while in the run-up to this presidential campaign.
But not much ammunition is being expended at this point. The candidates aren’t even doing all that much to further define their own campaigns. Giuliani came out with a speech on his 12 key principles. But they were quite familiar, essentially rehashing what he’s been saying in an attempt to counter criticism that he has not developed as a candidate after his impressive start in February.
To be fair, though, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to be rolling out the big ideas and making lots of moves against one’s opponents just now. This campaign got off to a premature start with the collapse of the Bush presidency late last year and the acceleration of the primary calendar. Do too much now and you risk boring people later. When they are actually ready to vote.
** SCHWARZENEGGER WEBCAST THIS MORNING. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger does another smaller market town hall meeting this morning, pushing his agenda of health care, infrastructure, the environment, water, education, and political reform in the southern San Joaquin Valley city of Bakersfield. The event will be webcast live at 10:30 AM.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 33rd day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed.
** NWN VIDEO RE-RUN. Today’s NWN video of Arnold Schwarzenegger was first published Monday. But because of YouTube’s extreme network processing problems, you couldn’t see it.
In the presidential race, Rudy Giuliani’s lead has declined, as has John McCain’s position in the wake of criticism of his co-authorship of the comprehensive immigration bill and the emergence of Fred Thompson. It’s Giuliani 29%, Thompson 20%, McCain 14%, and Mitt Romney 14%.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has moved up some, while Barack Obama and John Edwards have slipped. It’s Clinton 39%, Obama 25%, and Edwards 15%. These numbers are likely to fluctuate with the fundraising reports due at the end of June, in which Obama is expected to match Clinton and Edwards is expected to decline.
** ARNOLD AND TONY, ONCE AGAIN. As reported, British Prime Minister Tony Blair leaves 10 Downing Street on June 27th. But his political alliance with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will continue.To commemorate the transition, Schwarzenegger, who will keynote the new/improved/more moderate British Conservative Party convention in October, will jet to London for a very quick trip just before Blair hands over the prime ministership to Labour’s Gordon Brown to see Blair and celebrate their partnership. The two are collaborating on the climate change issue and carbon trading markets. Blair, as readers know, took part via satellite in Schwarzenegger’s elaborate climate change bill signing last fall on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. Yes, you will be seeing that NWN video again.
** SCHWARZENEGGER SAYS: I LOVE HIGH-SPEED RAIL. WHERE’S THE FEDERAL MONEY? Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has given a variety of mixed signals on the proposed California high-speed rail project, repeatedly delaying a proposed state bond measure for the project in favor of other more pressing needs and his own original projects. But he has also given many signals that he’s for it, as recently as the run-up to the “May revise” of his budget proposal, when he seemed on the verge of emphasizing the project.
He’s just released a letter to high-speed rail advocate Congressman Jim Costa, in which he lays out what might be a path forward. A public-private partnership with major federal funding to accompany the state bond issue.
Schwarzenegger: As you know, the current plan by the High-Speed Rail Authority calls for the federal government to be the largest investor in this $30 billion to $40 billion project. California has been working on high-speed rail for more than ten years now, and to date California taxpayers have borne 100 percent of the project costs, even though their ultimate participation should not exceed 33 percent of the total project cost. In fact, California taxpayers have already spent more than $40 million on planning, consultants and other costs and are being asked to spend $100 million more. Before asking our citizens to spend more on consultants, right-of-way purchases and other pre-development costs, or to approve a large bond, we must be able to identify a clear path that demonstrates the financial feasibility of the project and a commitment by other parties to participate.
** SPIELBERG FOR HILLARY. There is so much media chatter this morning about Steven Spielberg endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. Some readers may recall that I told you months ago that Spielberg was for Clinton. And that he only helped his DreamWorks partners David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg with their big Beverly Hilton fundraiser for Barack Obama out of loyalty, and a certain liking for Obama. This is not really a new development. But the media has no memory, and what memory it has is frequently faulty.
Besides, he couldn’t lock down Sean Connery for the Indiana Jones IV movie. Sir Sean is staying in retirement, rather than come back to play Indy’s dad again, as he did in the semi-classic summer picture, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Which he should have done, since we don’t really want The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to be the great Connery’s swan song, do we? Not that it’s not a decent picture.
Meanwhile, Obama appears to be on course to out-raise Clinton in second quarter fundraising.
** NEW MICHAEL MOORE FILM WOWS PREMIERE AUDIENCE. It turns out that I actually do have to sleep, and with a late night last night and interviews that didn’t show up on my schedule, an AM leader doesn’t get done in the middle of the night. So I’ll have a full report on Michael Moore Day, as it were, in California’s Capitol, and the politics of health care in California, where things are definitely moving, another time, quite possibly tomorrow. For now, a few observations.
First, Michael Moore is a better filmmaker than a politician. He gave a rousing speech yesterday afternoon at a late-starting rally — as my schedule really started to accordion — of 800 raucous activists, organized by the California Nurses Association outside the state Capitol. (I filmed the rally from all angles, and will roll out the video later, probably around the time Moore’s film launches around the country on June 29th. I also have a lot of footage from the premiere, which will be part of the video.)
Moore’s a good speaker, but he’s heavily rhetorical. If you don’t like left-wing pols, you’ll hate what he’s saying and how he says it, though he was much more thoughtful in his remarks and Q&A session at the premiere than at the rally. As a filmmaker, he makes his points more deftly. His new movie is very good. Given its rather grim topic, the state of health care in America, where 45 million people have no coverage and many of those who do are failed by the system, as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and others point out, it’s actually quite entertaining. But I’ll write more about that tomorrow.
Suffice it to say that this is one movie that the insurance industry has to be hoping is seen by no one.
** SCHWARZENEGGER ANNOUNCES CALIFORNIA WILL SUE BUSH ADMINISTRATION. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced early this morning that the State of California will sue the US Environmental Protection Agency later this year. At a hearing last Friday in Washington in which Attorney General and former Governor Jerry Brown — who will actually do the suing of the Bush Administration — demanded an end to federal foot-dragging on California’s landmark law to cut tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases, EPA chief Stephen Johnson made a statement which sounded like his intention to wait until late next year to determine whether to allow California to implement the law. Which was enacted in 2002.
Here’s what Schwarzenegger has to say in his letter to Johnson. (The reference to “the work of the Dept. of Transportation concerns the revelation that a Bush appointee was lobbying members of Congress to preempt California’s laws.) : We provided 180-day notice on April 26, 2007, of our intent to sue under the Clean Air Act and Administrative Procedure Act, which provide mechanisms for compelling delayed agency action. However, we had frankly held out hope that this dispute would be resolved without the time and expense of a lengthy court battle. Given your comments in front of the Special Committee and the work of the U.S. Department of Transportation, a lawsuit on the 181st day now appears to be inevitable.
The effects of climate change in California and all over the world are not theoretical science – they are already happening. We cannot afford to go any longer without efforts to turn the tide. Scientific consensus indicates climate change’s impact on every aspect of our daily lives. Let me give you one alarming example: California’s snowpack – the primary source of drinking water for two-thirds of Californians – will be reduced by up to 40 percent over the next few decades.
I ask you act immediately on California’s longstanding request for a federal preemption waiver for California’s motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions standards waiver request. It is the right thing to do. It is urgent. And it is the law. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is obligated under the federal Clean Air Act to grant in a reasonable time period our request for action. …
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 32nd day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed.
Today is the 20th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s speech at the
Berlin Wall, at which he challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev:
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”
Romney has always had a nascent advantage, having been the well-known governor of neighboring Massachusetts, whose Boston media market dominates much of the Granite State. Unlike the other candidates, he’s been advertising for months. He also impressed with a smooth performance in last week’s New Hampshire debate. And McCain has been hurt badly with Republican primary voters by his co-authorship of the highly controversial comprehensive immigration bill.
** MICHAEL MOORE DAY IN THE CALIFORNIA CAPITOL CONTINUES. The award-winning director of the documentaries Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine, Roger and Me, and The Big One has had several appearances today. Arriving 25 minutes late, his events have of course accordioned accordingly. After a nice press conference with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, at which the two men did not discuss the fact they are actually pushing different versions of universal health care and Moore spoke rather kindly of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and several other appearances, including a hearing with single-payer health care author, Santa Monica Senator Sheila Kuehl, Moore spoke to a rally of some 800 people, sponsored by the California Nurses Association outside the Capitol.
There he did criticize Schwarzenegger, with the nurses union organizers leading chants of “Shame on you.” (For the former action superstar, not the activist documentarian.) Moore gave an amusing but mostly fiery speech, insisting on the removal of all profit from the health care field and on the imposition of government-directed health care. I filmed the whole thing, plus some behind the scenes stuff, and will have a full report tomorrow. I’ll be covering the movie premiere tonight as well, of course. However, given how YouTube is currently malfunctioning, no guarantees on when these videos will be on NWN.
The poll indicates a fair amount of confusion, or perhaps willful conflation, among many Americans, with quite a few saying they believe in both evolution and creationism. Which makes sense, as people usually like to believe in a higher power. But the breakdown on the evolution question is striking. Republicans are overwhelmingly disbelievers in evolution. Independents are overwhelmingly believers in evolution. And Democrats are mostly believers in evolution.
** 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF REAGAN’S BRANDENBURG GATE SPEECH. Twenty years ago today, President Ronald Reagan went to the Berlin Wall between East and West, Communist world and free world, and challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear it down. Within a few years, it came down. Aggressive containment dealt effectively with a greater threat than any posed by Islamic jihadism by avoiding apocalypticism and embracing tough-minded realism.
** THOMPSON ON THE TONIGHT SHOW. After meeting with conservative intellectuals and publicists yesterday at Stanford’s Hoover Institution — where he was I believe the fourth candidate to appear, and word is he impressed — the newest flavor in the likely Republican presidential field, former Tennessee Senator and Law & Order star Fred Thompson is in Burbank today to tape tonight’s edition of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 31st day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating last week in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger encounters health care
protesters after his Chico town hall in this NWN video. (YouTube
is having enormous problems processing new videos.)
Two major Hollywood players are facing off, at least implicitly, in the state Capitol today over health care. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former action superstar who encountered health care protesters at his Chico town hall meeting yesterday, is pushing universal health care on top of the existing for profit system. Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, who will be all over the Capitol today before a premiere tonight of his new film Sicko, is for the more government-oriented single-payer system.
Schwarzenegger had another good town hall performance yesterday in the rural Northern California state college town of Chico. Sitting quietly in the audience of 200 at an elementary school was archconservative Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa, sans trademark cowboy hat, listening politely as the former Mr. Universe enthusiastically spieled about his fight against climate change to the approval of the assemblyman’s constituents. Schwarzenegger took a question about his opposition to single-payer health care from an activist in a t-shirt, saying he opposed it because it would hurt small business. Later, as he left, some 20 protesters called for him to sign the single-payer bill, SB 840 by Santa Monica Senator Sheila Kuehl, and he spoke with a woman very upset about the care a friend is receiving in a nursing home, seen in the NWN video above.
But as theater, all that may well have nothing on today, which is practically Michael Moore Day in Sacramento, though of course Schwarzenegger has proclaimed no such thing. Moore will have what is said to be the American premiere of his new documentary, Sicko, about the troubled US health care system, tonight in downtown Sacramento, hosted by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. The film, which is sure to figure into next year’s Academy Awards, had its world premiere last month at the Cannes Film Festival, receiving plenty of plaudits, as well as no little criticism for seeming to also boost Castro’s Cuba.
During the day, Moore takes part in two press conferences, one with Nunez and one with Kuehl (herself a co-star of the classic old TV series, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis), a briefing on single-payer health care, a rally outside the Capitol with the California Nurses Association, and a brief march to a downtown theater where the film will be screened for activists.
Will Moore and Schwarzenegger cross paths? He’s not on Schwarzenegger’s schedule. But neither was Moore on the schedule of the CEO of GM in Roger and Me.
Schwarzenegger, who dismissed Kuehl’s bill during yesterday’s town hall by comparing the health care it would deliver to that of the state prison system — the health care component of which is in federal receivership after all its difficulties — vetoed Kuehl’s bill last year and says he will do so again this year. Virtually all legislative Democrats voted for it and all Republicans against it. Business, to the extent it’s active on the issue, is opposed. Schwarzenegger, of course, has his own health care plan, which is quite controversial in its own right.
The politics of all this are rather convoluted. Last year, Schwarzenegger’s Democratic challenger, then Treasurer Phil Angelides, backed single-payer health care in the primary in a bid to win over activist liberals in his narrowly successful race against eBay honcho-turned-state Controller Steve Westly. Then Angelides, though running one of the most doctrinaire liberal campaigns in the country in a big year for Democrats nationally, went neutral on the bill in the general election against Schwarzenegger.
The rally outside the Capitol attempting to pressure Schwarzenegger into signing Kuehl’s bill was rather small and flat, as seen in an NWN video. Single-payer, which has not fared well at the California ballot box nor been endorsed by any of the leading Democratic presidential candidates, is, at least at the moment, still a shibboleth, something Democratic politicians embrace when they know there are no consequences for them not to.
If Schwarzenegger weren’t a sure veto, there would probably be fewer Democratic legislators voting for the bill. Just as Angelides embraced the idea in his primary campaign but abandoned it when he had to run against Schwarzenegger in the general election.
But the current US health care system is dangerously flawed. And the plans put forth by Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislative leaders — yes, Moore’s host, Speaker Nunez, while a vote for single-payer, has his own, quite different plan that, like Schwarzenegger’s, builds on top of the existing system — are almost Rube Goldbergian in their complexity. The time may come when single-payer moves beyond the realm of the enthusiasts of the left. In that regard, it will be interesting to see how this “Michael Moore Day” plays out.
** CLINTON LEADS DEMOCRATS, GIULIANI LEADS REPUBLICANS WITH THOMPSON CLOSING, OBAMA BEST GENERAL ELECTION CANDIDATE IN L.A. TIMES/BLOOMBERG POLL. A new national poll by the new LA Times linkup with Blooomberg News shows Rudy Giuliani with a narrowing lead over Fred Thompson, 27& to 21% among on the Republican side, with John McCain at 12% and Mitt Romney at 10%.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama, 33% to 22%, with Al Gore at 15% and John Edwards at 8%. But Obama runs the best in a general election. Giuliani leads Clinton by 10 points. It’s Giuliani 49%, Clinton 39%. Yet Obama leads Giuliani by five points. It’s Obama 46%, Giuliani 41%.
** THE VILLARAIGOSA PRESS CONFERENCE. WAS THAT A GOOD IDEA? LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa held his promised press conference today about his marital breakup, which he announced late on Friday afternoon in a statement. But he broke no new ground in his statement. And he answered no questions about the situation. Which only calls further attention to the situation and, of course, begs those unanswered questions.
** CALIFORNIA CREDIT RATING UP. Though the state’s structural budget deficit still remains, the Standard & Poor’s credit rating service today upgraded California’s rating from A+/Stable to A+/Positive.
** SCHWARZENEGGER TOWN HALL. Interesting town hall with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today in Chico, where he encountered health care protesters, took a question from a single-payer advocate, and talked with a woman distraught over a friend’s bad care in a local hospital. I’ll have a full report tomorrow. You know, it’s great fun driving a couple hundred miles in the midst of the day.
** FRED THOMPSON: “I DO NOT BELIEVE ABORTION SHOULD BE CRIMINALIZED.” It turns out that it wasn’t just once, with an aide filling out a questionnaire back in the early ’90s, that former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson made and put out statements that sound pretty equivocal on that anti-abortion stance that right-wingers are counting on as they look to be fired up by the former Law & Order star. The Nashville Tennesseean has the details.
Thompson has made a move in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination. His core support? Conservatives and older white men.
** REPUBLICANS ROAM CALIFORNIA. With all of them needing money and political support in what has become a rather fluid race for the Republican presidential nomination, the four top contenders are all in California this week. Rudy Giuliani wowed a Flag Day dinner of Orange County Republicans (and non-Sopranos fanatics) last night and is raising money here. John McCain is in the midst of a four-day fundraising swing and has a press conference in Sacramento today. Mitt Romney is here to raise money, too, and has a press conference on a golf course in Corona, which is in Riverside County east of LA.
Fred Thompson is meeting today with conservative intellectuals and publicists at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Tomorrow he does the Tonight Show with Jay Leno as his backers release a list of conservative state legislators encouraging him to run. He’s running.
** SPEAKING OF ROAMING, SO AM I. I’m traveling some today, so items will appear somewhat more irregularly than you’re usually accustomed to.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 30th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating last week in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, after an amusing encounter, talks health care crisis among the “big issues swept under the rug for decades” in this NWN video. (Sorry for the YouTube problem that made this unviewable while I was traveling today.)
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is on the road again this morning for another town hall, this time in Chico. Schwarzenegger is in the midst of taking his road show to smaller markets, having done Monterey last Thursday.
There in the picturesque coastal city, he had another successful town hall talking up his expansive agenda of universal health care, more infrastructure investment, greenhouse gas reduction, energy, and redistricting reform, among other things. Schwarzenegger, with much of his Cabinet in tow, also criticized the comprehensive immigration bill then being considered in the Senate, saying that in its current form it could hurt Silicon Valley because it would not allow high tech firms to recruit specific individuals but instead have to choose from a pool. Meanwhile, a dark cloud crossed the former action movie superstar’s sunny horizon, as the state’s Department of Finance announced that preliminary revenue numbers for May appear to show the state a whopping $764 million below estimates. This, after the first four months of the year had revenue running a few hundred million above estimates.
Under Schwarzenegger, the deficit is a fraction of what it was, but it still exists. Nevertheless, this year’s budget hasn’t ignited most of the predicted fireworks, thanks to revenues somewhat exceeding Schwarzenegger’s forecast and the desire of many legislators to gain his support for a possible change in the state’s term limits law.
Despite record levels of popular dissatisfaction with the direction of the nation, most California voters are happy with the direction of the state under Schwarzenegger’s governorship, with 61% approving of his job performance in a Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll late last month.
The poll, which showed the Legislature to be not nearly so popular, pointed up a continuing opportunity for Schwarzenegger to push his agenda, as he will do again today. Investing in another big set of infrastructure bonds, following on the heels of last November’s Big Bang Bond infrastructure package, is very popular, even as concern about the state budget is rather low. Meanwhile, support for changing term limits to 12 years total in the same house is at a marginally acceptable though still popular rate (53% to 41%), along with that generally sunny outlook for California’s future. So long as bipartisan cooperation — what the former Mr. Universe has dubbed “post-partisanship” — continues.
There’s a lot on the plate, and activating that public support for Schwarzenegger’s positions is a high priority for the governor as the Legislature emerges from its annual week of deciding which bills move out of their houses of origin and which bills die.
One major issue is redistricting reform. California state Capitol insiders are saying that the various competing redistricting reform proposals are hardening partisan positions and making it less likely that anything will happen. Perhaps. But there are powerful incentives for all parties to make something happen.
Democratic legislators need a redistricting reform proposal to move forward in order to get Arnold Schwarzenegger’s backing for their bid to change term limits. Republican legislators need a deal on redistricting to get a badly needed win and to have any chance of making legislative races more competitive. Assuming they don’t simply want to remain an enclave party. Schwarzenegger needs a redistricting deal because it’s an important goal of his. Sophisticated players in all camps know that they can’t get precisely what they want at the ballot box.
Schwarzenegger will talk up that more this morning in Chico, a rural state college town about 90 miles north of the Capitol. It’s the longtime stomping ground for state Democratic Party honcho Bob Mulholland, who memorably waylaid Republican Senate nominee Bruce Herschensohn there a few days before the 1992 election with allegations about his private life. Nothing like that is likely to happen today. Schwarzenegger has made many appearances without incident in the area, where he is quite popular.
It’s at last upon us tonight. The end of The Sopranos, the landmark TV series that did so much to make HBO a powerhouse in entertainment and provided intellectuals around the country with the reason to love a violent TV show.
Of course, the series won’t really die, because it will live on in the insatiable maw of cable television, DVDs, online video, and whatever else is to come as television and all media melt into cyberspace. But tonight is the last first run episode. Though I do expect a movie.
And no, while I don’t know what’s going to happen, I seriously doubt that lead character Tony Soprano dies tonight, as many predict.
The show, which will run all week (then all throughout recorded time?), first airs tonight at 6 PM Pacific time. And while there are notable political events occurring in California at exactly that time — Rudy Giuliani celebrates Flag Day with the Orange County Republican Party and Arnold Schwarzenegger appears at a dinner in LA honoring a major African American minister (with a live webcast) — there’s no question about what I’ll be doing then. Sorry, guys.
Incidentally, the symbolism of running the series finale on Flag Day, while perhaps unintentional, is no less telling. Just as was the case with bringing the series back from a long hiatus to start its final run on … Easter Sunday. Series creator David Chase has always encouraged all sorts of speculation about the deeper meaning of The Sopranos.
The Sopranos is about the reality of the American Dream. The mafia is a metaphor for corporate life. The Sopranos is about the hardship of the American family. Tony Soprano is the representative troubled middle manager in changing times. Tony Soprano is the epitome of an American CEO. Tony Soprano represents the threatened white middle-aged American male. And so on.
Many trees have died to support such theories. I won’t trouble too many more electrons with them.
Most of the theories revolve around the central figure of Tony Soprano, a great unmade bed of a man who is, not to put too fine a point on it, a hardened criminal who has never had any real intention of changing his life. Of course, he’s become a much beloved figure. He does, after all, have a heart. And there is something charming about seeing this out-of-shape man-bear charging around his McMansion in a ratty bathrobe, attempting to deal with his dissatisfied wife Carmela, his clever daughter “Meadow,” and his goofball son A.J.
The series began with the brilliant conceit of a mob boss in therapy, with severe mother issues, no less. Which I think is one of the principal reasons intellectuals embraced the show in the first place. The therapy conceit grew stale after the first few seasons, but continued right up till last week’s episode, when his female shrink Dr. Melfi fired him as a patient. Tony hadn’t really made much progress in the last seven or eight years, although he had gained a few insights, as anyone would spending so much time talking about themselves.
You may be gathering that I like The Sopranos very much — I’ve seen all but a few episodes and followed it from the beginning — but don’t think it’s the greatest show of all time. It’s not even my favorite show currently running. It may not be my favorite show of the two which marked the emergence of HBO, the other being Sex and the City.
While always good, The Sopranos could go fairly long stretches of time with very little happening. Which diehard fans defend by saying, variously, that’s like life, the producers are setting up important dynamics, and so forth.
Perhaps. Or perhaps they were figuring out where the story was going, buying time. The show has become notorious for being off the air for long stretches of time. With single seasons stretching out recently for as much as two years.
Whatever structural issues the show has had, its star, James Gandolfini, has been compelling throughout. His Tony Soprano is an always interesting, frequently fascinating character. It would be amusing to hear him read a Chinese menu.
It’s never quite clear how intelligent Tony is — which is a nice way of saying it’s likely he’s not very intelligent at all — but he is cunning and insightful, not to be underestimated. Gandolfini, a great character actor who found the perfect role of a lifetime to become a real star, invests Tony with a mixture of shrewdness, ruthlessness, heart, pathos, bathos, and avarice that at times manages to cohere into a rough approximation of nobility.
But only at times. He seems strong in part because he is surrounded by weak lieutenants who apishly call him “T.” There’s Silvio, his top captain, played by Miami Steve Van Zandt, ex-lead guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. Sil, with his black pompadour of cement, never really got a good line in the entire run of the series, which appeared to run out for him when he was hit by New York in the early stage of a mob war which has brewing for a couple of years. (T, you should have taken that New York guy down a year ago.) There’s Bobby Bacala, an actually kind-hearted fellow who used to be a gofer, unfortunately married to Tony’s harridan sister, gunned down while buying a beautiful model train set, dreaming of a nicer world.
There’s Christopher, Tony’s coke-snorting, movie-producing, worry-wart surrogate son cousin, finally so disastrously self-absorbed and destructive that Tony killed him himself. (A decision I applauded within the logic of the situation, showing how insidious the show can be.) There’s some other guys I always have to ask about, since I don’t watch the shows repeatedly. Then there’s Paulie, the stone cold asshole with a gift for malapropisms who many expect to betray Tony. We’ll see.
Note: This was a little later than I expected because the Formula One Canadian Grand Prix this morning proved to be spectacular and bizarre, with half the field knocked out of the race on a gorgeous Montreal race course, an amazing crash, and the first win of the sensational 22-year old British rookie, Lewis Hamilton, who now leads the F1 world championship series and is the first black guy to win an F1 grand prix.
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