Billionaire Meg Whitman, on a media full-court press to try to survive the revelation of her illegal immigrant housekeeper/nanny, today did this interview for the PBS News Hour in which she claims she had no idea her employee was here illegally and that she has always had the same policy on illegal immigration. The latter Whitman claim is absolutely false. The former claim is debatable, but not looking good for Whitman.
** QUICK HITS.Which way will Meg Whitman go next on her big crisis, the absolute denial and modified limited hangout phases having failed? Victim of a political conspiracy. … Meanwhile, the Service Employees Union, which represents many low-income Latino workers like Whitman’s former housekeeper/nanny, announced it has created a new independent expenditure committee called Cambiando California and has a brand-new Spanish language TV ad attacking Whitman on the controversy. The group was already in formation with Saturday’s Univision debate on tap when the Whitman controversy broke. … After joining New York Times columnist Tom Friedman and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star, for an event with a thousand people extolling the promise of a new green economy and opposing Prop 23 and other efforts to do away with California’s landmark climate change program, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger went into meetings with legislative leaders and others on the state budget impasse. These talks continue into the early evening. … Elsewhere in the world, President Barack Obama will hold an event tomorrow with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel at which he accepts Rahmbo’s resignation and wishes him well in his campaign for mayor of Chicago. Longtime Obama senior advisor Pete Rouse, who was Obama’s Senate chief of staff, will become interim White House chief of staff. … Incidentally, how stupid was the Meg Whitman campaign in holding its press conference today BEFORE Gloria Allred’s press conference? They called her a liar. She provided evidence that they are liars. And they have been scrambling ever since, coming up with new iterations of bogus spin. But what do you expect from a largely volunteer campaign, right? …
** MRS. HARSH’S MASSIVE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION PROBLEM. Billionaire Meg Whitman is desperately fighting to save her candidacy in the wake of the revelation of her having employed an illegal immigrant as her housekeeper/nanny for nine years, only firing Nicky Diaz Santillan in June 2009 after the Mexican citizen asked for her help in gaining legal status.
This morning, Whitman and her husband, Dr. Griffith Harsh IV, at a hastily called hour-long press conference in LA, insisted that they’d had no idea that Diaz was an illegal immigrant and that LA attorney Gloria Allred, ambulance chaser-to-the-stars, was lying and manipulating their former employee.
Whereupon Allred, who’d declined to offer documentation yesterday — choosing to let the dramatic, tearful story of her client carry the day on that day — held another press conference. A rather devastating press conference. In which she presented the Social Security letter she described yesterday, in which the federal authorities notify the Harshes that their employee’s purported Social Security number is not her own.
The letter has a notation that Allred says is in Griff Harsh IV’s handwriting, directing Nicky to take care of it. And a partially filled out form, also in what she says is Harsh’s handwriting, to straighten things out with the government.
Obviously never returned, as it could not be straightened out.
Whitman spinners had previously claimed that if there was a letter, and they weren’t saying there was because supposedly such a letter would only be sent to an employer who had multiple suspect employees — a point they perhaps should not have made! — that it was probably intercepted by Diaz. Who in their scenario was responsible for handling the personal mail sent to the home of the CEO of eBay and her Stanford neurosurgeon husband.
Diaz says she only took care of the mail when the Harshes were away on vacation.
Which makes much more sense. I doubt that the Harshes were going to rely on an unsophisticated immigrant from another country, whom they paid only $1200 per month, to handle their private mail.
That’s simply not credible.
But all these things will be sorted out, perhaps even the spectacle of Whitman herself taking a polygraph test to prove her ignorance. Incidentally, polygraphs can be beaten, especially by a practiced liar.
Speaking of which, while all these details get further sorted, let’s look at Whitman’s claim, which you see in the video above, that she has always had the same policy on illegal immigration.
This is absolutely false.
Last year, Whitman was for comprehensive immigration reform, in the manner of that proposed by John McCain, who presidential campaign she served as a national co-chair. She covered herself by being for a crackdown on illegal employment in this country, a stance which will haunt her now. But in Republican Party politics, she was on the squishy center/left on illegal immigration. She had to be, for she could only hope to beat Jerry Brown by winning a larger share than normal of Latino votes, and her record as CEO of eBay on Latino hiring was actually very poor.
In December, Whitman made a fateful mistake. She introduced her first radio ad in which she actually spoke, a 60-second affair decrying California’s large welfare caseload.
This was a big contradiction, because California’s large share of the nation’s welfare cases is driven by immigration, and specifically immigrant children.
Whitman’s primary rival, Steve Poizner, became persuaded that illegal immigration could be his leading edge issue in going after the soft conservative underbelly of the Whitman campaign. He implemented this strategy, to dramatic effect.
As a result of his great inroads, Whitman flip-flopped, becoming an immigration hawk. Denying that her position of 2009 meant what it did, she re-invented herself, using the bona fides of her campaign chairman, ex-Governor Pete Wilson, to do so.
Wilson, incidentally, also had his own illegal immigrant problem. He, too, had long employed an illegal immigrant housekeeper. Yet he rode to re-election in 1994 against Kathleen Brown, Jerry Brown’s sister, through his championing of the draconian anti-illegal immigrant initiative, Proposition 187.
Kathleen Brown’s campaign didn’t know about Pete Wilson’s big problem at the time. Had they known, that election could have turned very differently. As it was, Wilson’s illegal immigrant problem surfaced the following year, in 1995, and did much to scuttle his presidential campaign before it got out of the harbor.
** NEW POLL: ROMNEY AND PALIN ARE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL FRONTRUNNERS, WITH WEAK SHOWINGS. The new Gallup Poll shows that Republicans have two presidential frontrunners to try to take on President Barack Obama in 2012.
They are former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (who convinced his business protege, billionaire Meg Whitman, to run for governor of California) and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
But neither is in a very strong position.
Romney and Palin have 19% and 16%, respectively. Trailing them are former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee at 12%, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 9%, and Texas Congressman Ron Paul at 7%.
A variety of other candidates languish in the low single digits.
Gallup, in a poll conducted Sept. 25-26, asked Republicans and Republican-leaning independents which of 12 possible candidates they would be most likely to support for the party’s nomination. All 12 candidates are thought to be seriously considering a run for president, and many of them have already visited Iowa and New Hampshire, the states holding the first nominating contests.
In addition to the 12 named candidates, 1% of respondents volunteered the name of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Christie, in his first year as governor of the state, has become a prominent GOP figure, though he is not expected to run for president in 2012.
The current results are similar to prior Gallup polling on the 2012 nomination, using an open-ended format as well as a closed-ended format that offered a shorter list of candidates. Those polls also found Romney and Palin leading, with Huckabee and Gingrich next in line among likely candidates.
Little Ideological Differentiation on Romney, Palin
Romney and Palin are the top choices of both conservative and moderate or liberal Republicans, and in fact their support is similar among both groups. Of the top five candidates, Huckabee receives support that is most divided along ideological lines; he gets significantly more support among conservative Republicans.
Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, likely fares better among conservative Republicans because the group tends to be more religious. Among Republicans who say religion is important in their lives, Huckabee (14%) is essentially tied with Romney (17%) and Palin (16%).
Candidates Get More Support in Home Regions
Typically, support for presidential nomination candidates varies geographically, with candidates generally faring best in their home regions. This appears to be the case with most of the current group of GOP contenders, as Palin’s support is highest in the West, and Huckabee gets somewhat higher support in the South. Romney shows particular strength in both the East, where he was governor of Massachusetts, and the West, where he served as chief executive of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic games.
Bottom Line
Generally speaking, the better-known candidates tend to fare best in early tests of support for presidential nominations. That helps explain why 2008 presidential candidates Romney and Huckabee, 2008 vice presidential nominee Palin, and former House Speaker Gingrich currently generate more support for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination than those who have not previously run for national office or held a high position in national government, such as Tim Pawlenty or Haley Barbour.
Historically, Republicans have generally nominated the early front-runner as the party’s presidential candidate. The notable exception came in the last presidential election, when Rudy Giuliani led in most of the early nomination polls but had several poor early primary or caucus showings before withdrawing from the race.
Trial proceedings have begun for the first Guantanamo Bay detainee in the U.S. This former aide to Osama bin Laden will be tried in New York for terrorist activities, including the bombings of U.S. embassies.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama wrapped up his cross-country tour on economic revival yesterday.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
At 8:30 AM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner in the Oval Office.
Unemployment claims dropped last week.
At 9:45 AM Pacific, Obama meets with Democratic Congressional leadership in the Oval Office to go over game plans before Congress heads home to face its constituents.
Here are the expected attendees:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Senator Harry Reid, (D-NV), Majority Leader
Senator Dick Durbin, (D-IL), Majority Whip
Senator Chuck Schumer, (D-NY), Vice Chairman of the Conference
Senator Patty Murray, (D-WA), Secretary of the Conference
Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Majority Leader
Representative James Clyburn (D-SC), Majority Whip
Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Assistant to the Speaker
At 11 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 4:35 PM Pacific, Obama attends a DNC dinner at a private residence.
At 6:15 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a DNC Gen44 event at DAR Constitution Hall.
After his time today with Obama in the Oval, Biden is off on the political trail.
He does an event for Congressional candidate Tom White in Omaha, Nebraska, then does an event for Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish in New Mexico, who is running to succeed Governor and former presidential candidate Bill Richardson.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Pakistan is blocking some supply lines for U.S. and NATO forces after cross-border raids against jihadists using Pakistan as safe haven. These raids may also be linked to the plot announced by British and French officials for Mumbai-style attacks in their countries.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unresolved more than six months after national parliamentary elections.
Current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is attempting to hold on to power, having quashed a potential coalition government which did not include him in the premiership. But former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose secular Sunni party finished an unexpected first in the March parliamentary elections, vows that Maliki will not be elected again as prime minister. The maneuvering has become as stale as trench warfare in World War I.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Tuesday speech attacking Proposition 23 and other efforts to do away with California’s landmark climate change program was featured on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles and Sacramento today.
This morning, Schwarzenegger joins New York Times columnist Tom Friedman and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson at Sacrament’s Crest Theater to discuss climate change, renewable energy, and the Proposition 23 initiative to rollback California’s landmark programs.
Schwarzenegger will also hold talks on the state’s record budget impasse.
September 17th broke the all-time record for the longest that the state Legislature has gone without passing a budget.
Two new polls in the race to succceed Schwarzenegger have different results.
The one most recently in the field, for CNN and Time Magazine, as I reported late yesterday, has Jerry Brown nine points ahead of billionaire Meg Whitman.
The other new poll, for the Public Policy Institute of California, which came off embargo last night, has the race still tied. Though, oddly, with both candidates running in the 30s.
Reality lies somewhere in between. Brown was up by 3 or 4 points in good private polls as the week began. Nothing has happened to boost Whitman’s standing since then.
I’ll have more about the revelations concerning Whitman’s longtime illegal immigrant housekeeper in another item.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** WHY ON EARTH WOULD JERRY BROWN WANT TO BE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA?Why on earth would Jerry Brown want to be governor of California?
Back on that zany ’60s TV series The Wild Wild West, the two agents discovered that the governor of California was an impostor, installed by an art collector out to steal state money in order to buy the Mona Lisa. Hey, there’ve certainly been worse reasons to pursue the governorship of the not so Golden State.
But even though Jerry Brown is an aficionado of Leonardo da Vinci, we know that can’t be his motivation. The state government simply doesn’t have the money.
So why does Brown, who’s taking a lead in the latest polling over billionaire Meg Whitman, whom he finally debates for the first time on Tuesday night, his Zen rope-a-dope strategy beginning to pay off, want to be governor (again)?
Perhaps it’s the implacably intractable forces he’s likely to deal with. Brown has pledged to convene talks for the next state budget within 10 days of the November election. Which only makes sense, since the current state budget still hasn’t been enacted. After all, there’s nothing quite like banging your head against a wall.
Gray Davis was unable to govern as soon as he won re-election against Bill Simon in 2002. Davis, who I’ve known for decades, is happier now than he was as governor.
Arnold Schwarzenegger had a longer run, but lately has been hemmed in by the same dynamics that hamstrung Davis.
A few years ago, when it became evident that Brown — California’s attorney general, a former two-term governor of the state, two-term mayor of gritty Oakland, and two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination — was seriously contemplating a return to the office he held as a young man in the 1970s and early 1980s, I asked him why he wanted to return to what I rather indecorously described as the clown show. … From my September 27th essay.
** OBAMA STRUGGLES WITH FEAR OF “THIRD WORLD AMERICA” AMIDST MEDIA AND BANDWIDTH CHALLENGES.Less than six weeks before crucial national mid-term elections, Barack Obama, the wide bandwidth president dealing with the narrow bandwidth media, is in a real quandary. He’s enacted one of the most sweeping agendas in recent memory, but gets relatively little credit for himself and, more importantly at the moment, his Democratic allies. Indeed, many worry that the nation is sliding into what Arianna Huffington in her latest book calls Third World America. …
When Obama and his team took office, America was poised at the edge of the abyss. We’ve pulled back from that precipice, but the recovery is sluggish at best, the mood sour, and Obama gets precious little credit for helping avert an economic apocalypse.
In addition to whatever deficiencies exist in his policies, Obama suffers from pursuing a very wide bandwidth presidency in an era with a very shallow, ADD-oriented, media culture. …From my September 23rd column.
** MAD MEN: “THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS” REVOLVE AROUND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL MEN AND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL BIZ. … From my September 20th essay.
** EXPENDABLE ARNOLD: WHAT’S AHEAD FOR SCHWARZENEGGER?Arnold Schwarzenegger was back from his last big trip to Asia as governor of California and sounded pretty sick. But he powered through a Friday appearance giving out the annual awards of his Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. The overall numbers for the program were pretty impressive, with big increases in fitness activity levels for California schoolkids.
Still, another set of new numbers may have more bearing on Schwarzenegger’s future. Then there’s the usual state budget stalemate and the fights over the fate of the landmark climate change program Schwarzenegger helped enact and whether Jerry Brown or billionaire Republican Meg Whitman — now the biggest spending candidate in American history — will succeed him as governor. … From my September 18th column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $45 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Nicky Diaz Santillan, who worked for billionaire Meg Whitman for nine years as housekeeper and nanny, tearfully charged today that the California Republican gubernatorial nominee knew she was an illegal immigrant and “threw me away like a piece of garbage” last year when she asked for help in gaining legal status. Whitman denies knowing she was an illegal immigrant until last year. This is a complex case.
** QUICK HITS.New CNN/Time polls through last night give Democrats Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer identical nine-point leads, 52-43, over billionaire Meg Whitman and ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina in the race for governor and U.S. senator in California. I don’t think Brown is that far ahead of Whitman, who has shattered all spending records for a non-presidential campaign in American history. But I do think that Boxer, who debated Fiorina today on the radio, is on the verge of consolidating her race for re-election. … The California Supreme Court today issued an order preventing the carrying out of tomorrow night’s scheduled execution of a rapist and murderer of a teenage girl who committed the crimes in 1980. … Negotiations continued today on California’s record state budget impasse. …
** BILL CLINTON SETS BIG RALLIES WITH JERRY BROWN AND GAVIN NEWSOM. Following through on his campaign pledge to his 1992 presidential campaign rival, Jerry Brown, former President Bill Clinton today announced that he will do two rallies next month with the Democratic gubernatorial nominee and the candidate for lieutenant governor, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.
President Clinton, now the most popular politician in the country according to several recent polls, will appear at a UCLA rally with Brown and Newsom late on the afternoon of Friday, October 15th.
Clinton does another rally with Brown and Newsom at San Jose State University on the evening of Monday, October 17th.
** BROWN V. WHITMAN: FIRST DEBATE GOES PRETTY MUCH AS EXPECTED, WITH ADVANTAGE BROWN. Last evening’s somewhat ballyhooed debate between Jerry Brown and billionaire Meg Whitman went pretty much as expected. With the the format as it was — the usual moderator and reporter panel — any extended deep debate was short-circuited.
Just as Whitman wanted, which is why her army of consultants wants that played-out format, so she can stick to her memorized talking points and escape examination and extended exchanges.
Brown relaxed and had a little fun out there, coming off far more relatable than his mega-rich rival. He didn’t need to knock her out, didn’t need to attack on every point, but did focus in on some of the key ones that drive the contrast he needs.
He also made sure to show the continuity in his life and not act as though he’s the guy from a time warp. And he really focused in on the new boom we can have with greentech.
Brown did have a certain defensiveness at times. Since this is not simply theoretical in his life — unlike Whitman, who with the circles under her eyes came off as if she’d finished cramming for a presentation — he does have certain things to defend and explain. He sounds real doing it, and not arrogant.
However, there are some visual cues he can change while responding to her attacks. He needs to hold himself differently.
And Whitman needs to stop recycling her multi-millions consultant Mike Murphy’s corny old attack lines. For Arnold Schwarzenegger, he came up with “Count Cartaxula.” He had Whitman claim that putting Brown in to negotiate the budget would be like putting “Count Dracula in charge at the blood bank.”
On balance, I think the debate did what Brown needed it to do. The dippy conventional format favored her, because there is no real follow-through to expose how paper thin what she’s saying really is.
But she came off heavily programmed, and her reaction shots were quite unflattering, with strange smiles and an arrogant look.
As I expected, nothing much happened at UC Davis besides the debate itself, which is why I didn’t bother to go there, instead watching on television as voters did. There was a run-in between Brown supporters and Whitman supporters who tried to crash their rally space, something of real interest only to hyper-partisans of all stripes.
But as for the candidates themselves, neither had any extended interaction with the media on hand.
Whitman, as I expected, breezed through the press room for less than three minutes, offering up chilly non-answers to three decidedly softball questions.
Folks, if you actually have Whitman in front of you for a change, try to get her to say something of substance.
Brown then decided not to step on what he’d done in the debate by giving reporters contrasting access, so skipped the press room altogether.
The two meet again at mid-day on Saturday on the Fresno State campus.
British and French intelligence officials report a jihadist terror plot in their two countries after the fashion of the devastating Mumbai attacks at Thanksgiving 2008. The Eiffel Tower was closed for a few hours on Tuesday.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Iowa, Virginia, and Washington, DC.
Obama wraps up his cross-country tour on economic revival today.
Obama began the day in Des Moines, Iowa, site of his 2008 triumph in the first-in-the-nation Iowa presidential caucuses and a city I know well, and received the daily intelligence and economic briefings.
He then met with a family in Des Moines and held a discussion with the neighbors on the economy.
Following that, he departed Des Moines on Air Force One en route to Richmond, Virginia.
At 11:45 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in Richmond, Virginia.
At 12:20 PM Pacific, Obama meets with a Richmond family at the Southampton Recreation Association.
At 12:35 PM Pacific, Obama holds a discussion on the economy at the Southampton Recreation Association.
At 2:05 PM Pacific, Obama departs Richmond, Virginia on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 2:40 PM Pacific, Obama arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unresolved more than six months after national parliamentary elections.
Current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is attempting to hold on to power, having quashed a potential coalition government which did not include him in the premiership. But former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose secular Sunni party finished an unexpected first in the March parliamentary elections, vows that Maliki will not be elected again as prime minister. The maneuvering has become as stale as trench warfare in World War I.
Jerry Brown and billionaire Meg Whitman debated last night at UC Davis. Brown generally got the best of it. There were no knockout blows, but as you can see, Whitman did very badly in reaction shots, alternately smirking and looking uncomfortable
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles and Sacramento today.
Schwarzenegger joins business, labor, and Latino leaders at an 11 AM rally at Burbank Airport to oppose Proposition 23, the initiative that would do away with California’s landmark climate change/renewable energy program.
The rally takes place in the world’s first aviation hangar to achieve Platinum certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Rating System. The facility gets all of its electricity from solar power, uses 60 percent less water than similar hangars, and features vehicles that all run on energy from the sun.
Schwarzenegger will also hold talks on the state’s record budget impasse.
September 17th broke the all-time record for the longest that the state Legislature has gone without passing a budget.
Meanwhile, Jerry Brown debated billionaire Meg Whitman for an hour last evening in their race to succeed Schwarzenegger.
Brown generally got the best of the encounter, which I will discuss in another item.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** WHY ON EARTH WOULD JERRY BROWN WANT TO BE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA?Why on earth would Jerry Brown want to be governor of California?
Back on that zany ’60s TV series The Wild Wild West, the two agents discovered that the governor of California was an impostor, installed by an art collector out to steal state money in order to buy the Mona Lisa. Hey, there’ve certainly been worse reasons to pursue the governorship of the not so Golden State.
But even though Jerry Brown is an aficionado of Leonardo da Vinci, we know that can’t be his motivation. The state government simply doesn’t have the money.
So why does Brown, who’s taking a lead in the latest polling over billionaire Meg Whitman, whom he finally debates for the first time on Tuesday night, his Zen rope-a-dope strategy beginning to pay off, want to be governor (again)?
Perhaps it’s the implacably intractable forces he’s likely to deal with. Brown has pledged to convene talks for the next state budget within 10 days of the November election. Which only makes sense, since the current state budget still hasn’t been enacted. After all, there’s nothing quite like banging your head against a wall.
Gray Davis was unable to govern as soon as he won re-election against Bill Simon in 2002. Davis, who I’ve known for decades, is happier now than he was as governor.
Arnold Schwarzenegger had a longer run, but lately has been hemmed in by the same dynamics that hamstrung Davis.
A few years ago, when it became evident that Brown — California’s attorney general, a former two-term governor of the state, two-term mayor of gritty Oakland, and two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination — was seriously contemplating a return to the office he held as a young man in the 1970s and early 1980s, I asked him why he wanted to return to what I rather indecorously described as the clown show. … From my September 27th essay.
** OBAMA STRUGGLES WITH FEAR OF “THIRD WORLD AMERICA” AMIDST MEDIA AND BANDWIDTH CHALLENGES.Less than six weeks before crucial national mid-term elections, Barack Obama, the wide bandwidth president dealing with the narrow bandwidth media, is in a real quandary. He’s enacted one of the most sweeping agendas in recent memory, but gets relatively little credit for himself and, more importantly at the moment, his Democratic allies. Indeed, many worry that the nation is sliding into what Arianna Huffington in her latest book calls Third World America. …
When Obama and his team took office, America was poised at the edge of the abyss. We’ve pulled back from that precipice, but the recovery is sluggish at best, the mood sour, and Obama gets precious little credit for helping avert an economic apocalypse.
In addition to whatever deficiencies exist in his policies, Obama suffers from pursuing a very wide bandwidth presidency in an era with a very shallow, ADD-oriented, media culture. …From my September 23rd column.
** MAD MEN: “THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS” REVOLVE AROUND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL MEN AND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL BIZ. … From my September 20th essay.
** EXPENDABLE ARNOLD: WHAT’S AHEAD FOR SCHWARZENEGGER?Arnold Schwarzenegger was back from his last big trip to Asia as governor of California and sounded pretty sick. But he powered through a Friday appearance giving out the annual awards of his Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. The overall numbers for the program were pretty impressive, with big increases in fitness activity levels for California schoolkids.
Still, another set of new numbers may have more bearing on Schwarzenegger’s future. Then there’s the usual state budget stalemate and the fights over the fate of the landmark climate change program Schwarzenegger helped enact and whether Jerry Brown or billionaire Republican Meg Whitman — now the biggest spending candidate in American history — will succeed him as governor. … From my September 18th column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $43 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is expected to leave his post and return home to run for mayor of Chicago. There is one emerging glitch, however. His tenant doesn’t want to move out of his house.
** QUICK HITS.A federal appeals court today stayed a temporary injunction issued by a federal judge against human embryonic stem cell research. This will allow federal research to continue pending the outcome of the case. California presently has the world’s biggest stem cell research program, which will only grow in importance if the federal program is blocked. … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislative leaders did not hold a “Big 5″ meeting today on the record late state budget impasse. Schwarzenegger wants public pension reform and Republican legislators want tax breaks for cable and oil companies. … You can watch the Jerry Brown vs. Meg Whitman gubernatorial debate from 6 to 7 PM tonight on this UC Davis web site.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: DEBATE DAY, AND A NOTABLE PUBLIC RE-EMERGENCE IN THE JERRY BROWN CAMP. Tonight, at UC Davis, is the first debate between Jerry Brown and billionaire Meg Whitman.
It may be a dramatic event tonight, or it may not. I tend to think the latter. Debates are usually over-hyped, generally by the press itself, like conventions. Yet more information will seep into the news flow, and thus into the minds of voters.
I expect Brown to do well, but I don’t expect Whitman to embarrass herself.
Both candidates are prepping for the debate, of course, with Whitman cramming to be able to speak beyond her pre-programmed soundbites. Fortunately for her, the format — the usual moderator and reporter panel — will short-circuit any extended deep debate.
Brown is prepping, too, but he participated in a lengthy ceremony this morning in the Council Room of the Governor’s Office with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, then held a press availability in the hallway outside, next to the big bear statue that Schwarzenegger installed there.
The two performed the annual ritual this morning of awarding the Medal of Valor to deserving heroes from the ranks of California’s public safety officers, with Schwarzenegger draping a medal around each recipient’s neck and Brown handing over the winner’s plaque. It was quite moving, especially since some of the tales of heroism were very hair-raising.
For their parts, Schwarzenegger and Brown heaped praise upon one another, with Schwarzenegger nearly referring to the attorney general as the governor, calling him lieutenant governor instead.
As the ceremony went on, the keen observer may have noticed a cherubic-looking man well off to Brown’s right, in a corner of the room next to the entrance to the corridor leading to Schwarzenegger’s inner sanctum. But I doubt that most knew who he was. Indeed, one of Schwarzenegger’s top aides asked me later about “this Tom Quinn fellow” who had accompanied Brown in to see Schwarzenegger prior to the ceremony.
While Brown, sounding relaxed and confident outside the Governor’s Office after the awards ceremony, spoke to the assembled reporters, saying nothing especially noteworthy but sounding reassuring, Quinn was very far off to the side, nowhere near the cameras. Then, with the questions asked and mostly answered, the press dispersing, Brown joined Quinn and the two of them got in an elevator by themselves, heading up.
Tom Quinn, who has never been mentioned in any press reports about Brown, was his first campaign manager and is probably his longest-standing advisor. Quinn connected with Brown before he ran for office, and was his campaign manager in his races for the Los Angeles Community College Board in 1969, California Secretary of State in 1970, and Governor of California in 1974.
After Brown was elected governor, Quinn became a member of his Cabinet and head of the state Air Resources Board. Later, he returned to the private sector.
Here is an interesting little profile of Quinn from Tom Hayden’s extremely long profile of then Governor-elect Brown, “The Mystic and the Machine: California’s Young Governor,” which appeared in the December 19th, 1974 issue of Rolling Stone:
Campaign manager Tom Quinn is not a nice guy either, though at 30 he still looks like a cherub. Denizens of the L.A. political swamps call him a “real Quinn,” in reference to his father Joe, one of the meanest political figures of the Sixties. Joe was Mayor Sam Yorty’s deputy, a hatchet man who seems to have passed on certain skills to son Tom. He also purchased the prosperous City News Service which employed his son until young Tom started the fast-growing Radio News West. In those days, the late Sixties, Tom hooked up with reporters Doug Faigen and Llew Werner who finally ended up with him as the Brown press men.
College education at Northwestern plus some affluence and his youth make Tom Quinn far more liberal and affable than his old man. He is to the soft world of the media what Maullin is to the hard world of the computer. And further, the media environment in which he was raised is to Quinn clearly what jungles are to the guerrilla. He knows how to package a story with the right emphasis and timing, and did so repeatedly for Brown when he was secretary of state.
The media for Quinn is virtually a new context of politics, transcending the old framework of interest groups. While accepting the existence of the Democratic party, like most Brown people, he privately thinks very little of its internal structure. “All you need is money and media, and you go right over their heads. The party’s irrelevant.”
While Quinn is more or less free of the muck of party politics, the context in which he moves is ominous for the future. The ward office is replaced by the television studio, the backroom by the makeup chamber, stumping by television ads. Little of it is subject to public control, and it can utilize a whole range of images and stimuli never available in old-time politics. It is a political marketplace in which “the people” are inevitably defined as consumers who are alternately studied and aroused.
Not that Quinn is merely an ad man. He is sensitive to questions of the war, the farmworkers, political reform. It was he who skillfully ferreted out the proof that Frank DeMarco had back-dated Nixon’s documents. It is not a question of the sensitivity of a few select individuals, however, but of the political process they evolve. It is not the old process of constituency groups nor the new one of “citizen action” that a Tom Quinn represents, so much as the public relations world of “impressions.” It is the artificial reality of neat daily press releases, brief television spots, instant rebuttals timed for deadlines, positions prepared for effect, all arising not from Jesuit meditation but keen promotional instincts.
Before embarking yesterday on his cross-country economic revival tour, President Barack Obama signed the Small Business Jobs Act, which he and Senate Democrats finally got through after breaking a Republican filibuster.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Iowa.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings.
At 9 AM Pacific, Obama meets with an Albuquerque family at a private residence.
At 9:15 AM Pacific, Obama holds a discussion on the economy.
At 11:20 AM Pacific, Obama departs Albuquerque, New Mexico on Air Force One en route to Madison, Wisconsin.
At 1:35 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in Madison, Wisconsin.
At 2:30 PM Pacific, Obama attends a Democratic National Committee finance reception at the Concourse Hotel in Madison.
At 4 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a DNC rally at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, a veteran liberal, and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, the Democratic nominee for governor, are in tough election fights.
At 5:20 PM Pacific, Obama departs Madison, Wisconsin on Air Force One en route to Des Moines, Iowa.
At 6:15 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in Des Moines, Iowa.
For his part, Vice President Joe Biden delivers remarks at a DNC rally at Pennsylvania State University this afternoon, then does a fundraiser in New York City for Illinois Senatorial candidate Alexi Giannoulias.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unresolved more than six months after national parliamentary elections.
Current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is attempting to hold on to power, having quashed a potential coalition government which did not include him in the premiership. But former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose secular Sunni party finished an unexpected first in the March parliamentary elections, vows that Maliki will not be elected again as prime minister. The maneuvering has become as stale as trench warfare in World War I.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger discussed the 50th anniversary of the California Medal of Valor in these remarks last December.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles and Sacramento today.
He and Attorney General Jerry Brown present the Medal of Valor, California’s highest award for acts of heroism by public safety officers, to 10 officers from around the state this morning in the Governor’s Council Room.
Brown takes part in a debate tonight with billionaire Republican Meg Whitman from 6 to 7 PM at the University of California at Davis, roughly 15 miles from the State Capitol.
** WHY ON EARTH WOULD JERRY BROWN WANT TO BE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA?Why on earth would Jerry Brown want to be governor of California?
Back on that zany ’60s TV series The Wild Wild West, the two agents discovered that the governor of California was an impostor, installed by an art collector out to steal state money in order to buy the Mona Lisa. Hey, there’ve certainly been worse reasons to pursue the governorship of the not so Golden State.
But even though Jerry Brown is an aficionado of Leonardo da Vinci, we know that can’t be his motivation. The state government simply doesn’t have the money.
So why does Brown, who’s taking a lead in the latest polling over billionaire Meg Whitman, whom he finally debates for the first time on Tuesday night, his Zen rope-a-dope strategy beginning to pay off, want to be governor (again)?
Perhaps it’s the implacably intractable forces he’s likely to deal with. Brown has pledged to convene talks for the next state budget within 10 days of the November election. Which only makes sense, since the current state budget still hasn’t been enacted. After all, there’s nothing quite like banging your head against a wall.
Gray Davis was unable to govern as soon as he won re-election against Bill Simon in 2002. Davis, who I’ve known for decades, is happier now than he was as governor.
Arnold Schwarzenegger had a longer run, but lately has been hemmed in by the same dynamics that hamstrung Davis.
A few years ago, when it became evident that Brown — California’s attorney general, a former two-term governor of the state, two-term mayor of gritty Oakland, and two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination — was seriously contemplating a return to the office he held as a young man in the 1970s and early 1980s, I asked him why he wanted to return to what I rather indecorously described as the clown show. … From my September 27th essay.
** OBAMA STRUGGLES WITH FEAR OF “THIRD WORLD AMERICA” AMIDST MEDIA AND BANDWIDTH CHALLENGES.Less than six weeks before crucial national mid-term elections, Barack Obama, the wide bandwidth president dealing with the narrow bandwidth media, is in a real quandary. He’s enacted one of the most sweeping agendas in recent memory, but gets relatively little credit for himself and, more importantly at the moment, his Democratic allies. Indeed, many worry that the nation is sliding into what Arianna Huffington in her latest book calls Third World America. …
When Obama and his team took office, America was poised at the edge of the abyss. We’ve pulled back from that precipice, but the recovery is sluggish at best, the mood sour, and Obama gets precious little credit for helping avert an economic apocalypse.
In addition to whatever deficiencies exist in his policies, Obama suffers from pursuing a very wide bandwidth presidency in an era with a very shallow, ADD-oriented, media culture. …From my September 23rd column.
** MAD MEN: “THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS” REVOLVE AROUND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL MEN AND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL BIZ. … From my September 20th essay.
** EXPENDABLE ARNOLD: WHAT’S AHEAD FOR SCHWARZENEGGER?Arnold Schwarzenegger was back from his last big trip to Asia as governor of California and sounded pretty sick. But he powered through a Friday appearance giving out the annual awards of his Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. The overall numbers for the program were pretty impressive, with big increases in fitness activity levels for California schoolkids.
Still, another set of new numbers may have more bearing on Schwarzenegger’s future. Then there’s the usual state budget stalemate and the fights over the fate of the landmark climate change program Schwarzenegger helped enact and whether Jerry Brown or billionaire Republican Meg Whitman — now the biggest spending candidate in American history — will succeed him as governor. … From my September 18th column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $43 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
U.S. Marines got into a firefight today as the slow-moving offensive in Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province throttled up a bit.
** QUICK HITS.U.S. and Palestinian negotiators today expressed deep dismay as Israel ended its frequently amended policy of stopping settlements by religious fundamentalists in disputed areas. Palestinians have repeatedly warned that this issue alone could derail recently renewed peace negotiations. … The long promised and much delayed U.S./Afghan offensive in Kandahar Province ratcheted up some today, but is likely short-lived with inclement weather expected in the next month. … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today celebrated the fourth anniversary of the enactment of California’s landmark climate change program with a Silicon Valley speech ripping oil companies bankrolling the Prop 23 initiative campaign to do away with it. Asked about his wannabe successor Meg Whitman’s opposition to the program (she also opposes the initiative), he said only that she should donate some of the millions she’s spending trying to beat Jerry Brown to the No on 23 campaign. … Schwarzenegger also delayed the first execution since 2006, of a man who raped and murdered a girl in 1980, till Thursday night to allow for last-minute appeals. … Despite hopes late last week, by the end of today’s business there is not yet a new state budget deal.
** WHY ON EARTH WOULD JERRY BROWN WANT TO BE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA?Why on earth would Jerry Brown want to be governor of California?
Back on that zany ’60s TV series The Wild Wild West, the two agents discovered that the governor of California was an impostor, installed by an art collector out to steal state money in order to buy the Mona Lisa. Hey, there’ve certainly been worse reasons to pursue the governorship of the not so Golden State.
But even though Jerry Brown is an aficionado of Leonardo da Vinci, we know that can’t be his motivation. The state government simply doesn’t have the money.
So why does Brown, who’s taking a lead in the latest polling over billionaire Meg Whitman, whom he finally debates for the first time on Tuesday night, his Zen rope-a-dope strategy beginning to pay off, want to be governor? Again.
Perhaps it’s the implacably intractable forces he’s likely to deal with. Brown has pledged to convene talks for the next state budget within 10 days of the November election. Which only makes sense, since the current state budget still hasn’t been enacted. After all, there’s nothing quite like banging your head against a wall.
Gray Davis was unable to govern as soon as he won re-election against Bill Simon in 2002. Davis, who I’ve known for decades, is happier now than he was as governor.
Arnold Schwarzenegger had a longer run, but lately has been hemmed in by the same dynamics that hamstrung Davis.
A few years ago, when it became evident that Brown — California’s attorney general, a former two-term governor of the state, two-term mayor of gritty Oakland, and two-time runner-u for the Democratic presidential nomination — was seriously contemplating a return to the office he held as a young man in the 1970s and early 1980s, I asked him why he wanted to return to what I rather indecorously described as the clown show. …
** NEW POLL: REPUBLICANS DOMINATED BY OLDER WHITE CONSERVATIVES. A new Gallup Poll survey reveals, most unsurprisingly, the the national Republican Party is dominated by older white conservatives.
Just like the so-called Tea Party movement, which I think is merely the longtime far right, re-branded by the new conservative media.
71% of Republicans describe themselves as conservatives. They are especially predominant in the South.
Gallup Daily tracking thus far in 2010 finds 18% of Republicans describing their political views as very conservative and 53% as conservative while 29% are moderate or liberal.
There are few demographic differences between Republicans who call themselves “very conservative” and those identifying as simply “conservative.” However, both conservative groups differ significantly by religious identification and by age from moderate and liberal Republicans, more so than on any other demographic characteristic analyzed.
Seventy-three percent of very conservative Republicans are Protestant, as are 66% of conservative Republicans. In contrast, 59% of moderate/liberal Republicans are Protestant. Moderate/Liberal Republicans are also more likely than conservatives to have no religious affiliation.
Age separates conservative and moderate/liberal Republicans as well. Forty-three percent of very conservative Republicans and 42% of conservative Republicans are 55 or older, compared with 34% of moderate/liberal Republicans. A relatively small 16% of very conservative Republicans are aged 18 to 34, compared with 27% of moderate/liberal Republicans. …
Related to the age and religious differences between the different Republican factions, Gallup finds conservative Republicans much more likely than moderate/liberal Republicans to say religion is very important in their lives, and to say they attend their church or other place of worship weekly. In fact, those who are very conservative are nearly twice as likely as moderates/liberals to attend weekly — 61% vs. 32% — with conservatives falling about midway between the two, at 46%. This relationship between religiosity and conservative political values is as strong within the Republican Party as it is among Americans more generally.
Conservative Republicans are also generally more likely to be white and male than their moderate/liberal counterparts. And very conservative Republicans are more likely to live in the South — 40% of them do — than are conservatives (36%) and moderates/liberals (33%). …
As reported on Gallup.com earlier this year, the conservative bloc may be growing in influence in the Republican Party. Whereas 62% of core Republicans called themselves conservative in 2000, the figure has been 70% or higher each year since 2008, including 71% thus far in 2010 (through Sept. 23). That exceeds the 67% Gallup found in 2006 and the 62% in 2002 — the last two midterm election years.
Among Republicans today, conservatives are more likely to be Protestant, much more likely to be religious, and are, on average, older than moderate/liberal Republicans. They also consist more heavily of men, whites, and those living in the South — but the differences here are not as pronounced.
In that voter turnout is generally much greater among middle-aged and older Americans than among younger adults, it is likely that conservative (and religious) Republicans have had an even greater voice in Republican Party primaries this year than their numbers suggest. Coupled with the expanded proportion of conservatives within the Republican ranks over the past decade, this may help explain the success of several Tea Party-backed GOP candidates this year against establishment Republicans. It also highlights the turnout advantage conservatives will likely have in the upcoming general elections.
President Barack Obama appeared at the annual United Nations Secretary General luncheon last week in New York. This week he’s focusing on the domestic economy.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
With just over five weeks till crucial mid-term elections, it’s another big week in presidential politics and California politics.
In public and private polling, Jerry Brown has taken a slim lead over billionaire Meg Whitman in the race to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California, and will debate her on Tuesday night at UC Davis. Barbara Boxer has a slightly larger lead over ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina in the U.S. Senate race.
And President Barack Obama, having spent most of last week on foreign policy, pivots at last to the economy this week.
On Monday, Obama will be interviewed live on The Today Show from the White House. In the afternoon, he will sign the small business jobs bill and then travel to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
On Tuesday, Obama will meet with a local Albuquerque, New Mexico family at their home before hosting a discussion on the economy with families from the area. Later, he will travel to Madison, Wisconsin to attend a Democratic National Committee rally. In the evening, he will travel to Des Moines, Iowa.
On Wednesday, Obama will meet with a local Des Moines, Iowa family at their home before hosting a discussion on the economy with families from the area. Later, he will travel to Richmond, Virginia, where he will meet with local Richmond families and host a discussion on the economy. In the evening, he will return to the White House.
As usual, Obama’s schedule gets more vague toward the end of the week, to allow for reaction to emerging events.
On Thursday, the President will attend meetings at the White House. In the evening, he will attend DNC fundraising events in Washington, DC.
On Friday, the President will attend the Investiture Ceremony for new Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.
The Whitman campaign launched an effort to discredit the poll, claiming in one of the most bafflegab memos I’ve seen in a while that the poll’s sample is wildly distorted in the Democratic direction.
Actually, the poll has a 44-36 Democratic/Republican breakdown, a mere eight-point edge in a state in which Democrats enjoy a 14-point registration edge. So the poll, unlike Whitman chief strategist Mike Murphy’s latest non-serious spin — so reminiscent of his silly spin five years ago on behalf of the obviously failing special election initiatives he was then promoting — is quite reality-based.
Nevertheless, I think it’s a bit optimistic on the Democratic end. For example, the new private polls I’m aware of have Brown with a 3 or 4-point edge over Whitman, not the 5-point edge in the Times poll.
Clearly, Brown has survived Whitman’s barrage of false attacks and is moving. He should, however, be doing somewhat better in my opinion.
Boxer is close to taking command of the Senate race over Fiorina, who has failed thusfar to get out of primary mode.
And initiatives to legalize small amounts of marijuana for personal use and change the legislative vote needed to pass a budget from two-thirds to a majority are looking good, while the effort to dump California’s landmark climate change program does not.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and New Mexico.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He was interviewed live this morning on NBC’s The Today Show, at 5 AM Pacific, on the state of education.
At 9:10 AM Pacific, Obama hosts an on-the-record conference call with college and university student-journalists from the Oval Office.
At 10:45 AM Pacific, Obama signs the Small Business Jobs Act in the East Room.
Obama and Democrats finally broke the Senate Republican filibuster on this bill, which will add tens of billions in aid to small businesses.
At 2 PM Pacific, Obama departs the White House on Marine One for Andrews Air Force Base.
At 2:15 PM Pacific, Obama departs Andrews Air Force Base on Air Force One en route to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
At 5:55 PM Pacific, Obama arrives at Kirtland Air Force Base outside Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unresolved more than six months after national parliamentary elections.
Current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is attempting to hold on to power, having quashed a potential coalition government which did not include him in the premiership.
But former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose secular Sunni party finished an unexpected first in the March parliamentary elections, vows that Maliki will not be elected again as prime minister.
The maneuvering has become as stale as trench warfare in World War I.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed California’s landmark climate change/renewable energy program into law four years ago today on San Francisco Bay’s Treasure Island.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, and Sacramento today.
Schwarzenegger celebrates the fourth anniversary of his signing of AB 32, the basis of California’s landmark climate change program.
He will use the anniversary to discuss attempts to block the law, principally the Proposition 23 initiative, in a speech to the Commonwealth Club in Santa Clara. Following that, he will participate in a moderated Q&A with Greg Dalton, founder of Climate One.
Schwarzenegger hopes to lock down and flesh out what his office calls a framework agreement for a new state budget.
Reports indicate that a corporate tax break granted last year would be postponed for a few years and $8 billion in cuts would be adopted.
September 17th broke the all-time record for the longest that the state Legislature has gone without passing a budget.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** OBAMA STRUGGLES WITH FEAR OF “THIRD WORLD AMERICA” AMIDST MEDIA AND BANDWIDTH CHALLENGES.Less than six weeks before crucial national mid-term elections, Barack Obama, the wide bandwidth president dealing with the narrow bandwidth media, is in a real quandary. He’s enacted one of the most sweeping agendas in recent memory, but gets relatively little credit for himself and, more importantly at the moment, his Democratic allies. Indeed, many worry that the nation is sliding into what Arianna Huffington in her latest book calls Third World America.
As Huffington puts it in her book, “We are obviously not yet a Third World nation. But we are well on our way. This is the unspoken fear of so many out-of-work Americans and those still at work but anxious about their futures and the futures of their children.”
In another characteristic of potential Third World-ism, the super-rich and powerful got all they could ask for in the massive bailout of Wall Street — after nearly crashing the global economy with their boneheaded machinations — and still haven’t turned around to re-inflate the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, America’s decrepit infrastructure got relative short shrift, and most Americans continue to struggle with stalled or declining incomes.
When Obama and his team took office, America was poised at the edge of the abyss. We’ve pulled back from that precipice, but the recovery is sluggish at best, the mood sour, and Obama gets precious little credit for helping avert an economic apocalypse.
In addition to whatever deficiencies exist in his policies, Obama suffers from pursuing a very wide bandwidth presidency in an era with a very shallow, ADD-oriented, media culture. …From my September 23rd column.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the sequel to the 1987 classic Wall Street, debuted number one over the weekend at the domestic box office. Its take of $19 million, however, was somewhat lower than expected, perhaps due to the inability of star Michael Douglas, now battling cancer, to do much promotion for the movie.
** MAD MEN: “THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS” REVOLVE AROUND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL MEN AND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL BIZ. … From my September 20th essay.
** EXPENDABLE ARNOLD: WHAT’S AHEAD FOR SCHWARZENEGGER?Arnold Schwarzenegger was back from his last big trip to Asia as governor of California and sounded pretty sick. But he powered through a Friday appearance giving out the annual awards of his Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. The overall numbers for the program were pretty impressive, with big increases in fitness activity levels for California schoolkids.
Still, another set of new numbers may have more bearing on Schwarzenegger’s future. Then there’s the usual state budget stalemate and the fights over the fate of the landmark climate change program Schwarzenegger helped enact and whether Jerry Brown or billionaire Republican Meg Whitman — now the biggest spending candidate in American history — will succeed him as governor. … From my September 18th column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $42 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Former Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband, 40, very narrowly defeated his older brother, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, for the leadership of the British Labour Party yesterday. Labour has gone into opposition in America’s closest ally since losing earlier this year to an unlikely coalition Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition. The elder Miliband, 45, a protege of Tony Blair and friend of Hillary Clinton, was long favored, but was bested at the end by a late union push. Labour is currently just a few points behind the Tories in preference.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
Obama has no scheduled public events.
Recounts have been ordered in many polling districts for last week’s Afghanistan national parliamentary elections.
Iran is threatening to sue Russia for refusing to deliver contracted S-300 advanced anti-aircraft systems.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … WHY ON EARTH WOULD JERRY BROWN WANT TO BE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA?
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILES – SUNDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
Schwarzenegger is trying to wrap up and flesh out the framework of an apparent state budget deal, hopefully to be revealed and announced on Monday.
In the race to succeed him, Jerry Brown has taken the lead over billionaire Meg Whitman in a new Los Angeles Times poll.
In the U.S. Senate race, Senator Barbara Boxer leads ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, 51% to 43%.
I think the poll is a bit optimistic from a Democratic standpoint. Still, Brown has clearly withstood Whitman’s thoroughly false “Bill Clinton” TV attack ad — and her record-shattering spending for all non-presidential campaigns in American history — and is moving against her.
In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama calls the proposed Congressional Republican economic policies “the echo of a disastrous decade.”
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington, back after three days of foreign policy events surrounding the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York City.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He has no scheduled public events.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unresolved more than six months after national parliamentary elections.
Current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is attempting to hold on to power, having quashed a potential coalition government which did not include him in the premiership.
But former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose secular Sunni party finished an unexpected first in the March parliamentary elections, vows that Maliki will not be elected again as prime minister.
The maneuvering has become as stale as trench warfare in World War I.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
Schwarzenegger is holding private talks today, hoping to lock down and flesh out what his office calls a framework agreement for a new state budget.
Reports indicate that a corporate tax break granted last year would be postponed for a few years and $8 billion in cuts would be adopted.
A week ago Friday broke the all-time record for the longest that the state Legislature has gone without passing a budget.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** OBAMA STRUGGLES WITH FEAR OF “THIRD WORLD AMERICA” AMIDST MEDIA AND BANDWIDTH CHALLENGES.Less than six weeks before crucial national mid-term elections, Barack Obama, the wide bandwidth president dealing with the narrow bandwidth media, is in a real quandary. He’s enacted one of the most sweeping agendas in recent memory, but gets relatively little credit for himself and, more importantly at the moment, his Democratic allies. Indeed, many worry that the nation is sliding into what Arianna Huffington in her latest book calls Third World America.
As Huffington puts it in her book, “We are obviously not yet a Third World nation. But we are well on our way. This is the unspoken fear of so many out-of-work Americans and those still at work but anxious about their futures and the futures of their children.”
In another characteristic of potential Third World-ism, the super-rich and powerful got all they could ask for in the massive bailout of Wall Street — after nearly crashing the global economy with their boneheaded machinations — and still haven’t turned around to re-inflate the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, America’s decrepit infrastructure got relative short shrift, and most Americans continue to struggle with stalled or declining incomes.
When Obama and his team took office, America was poised at the edge of the abyss. We’ve pulled back from that precipice, but the recovery is sluggish at best, the mood sour, and Obama gets precious little credit for helping avert an economic apocalypse.
In addition to whatever deficiencies exist in his policies, Obama suffers from pursuing a very wide bandwidth presidency in an era with a very shallow, ADD-oriented, media culture. …From my September 23rd column.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is debuting at number one at the domestic box office this weekend. The film is the sequel to 1987′s Wall Street. Here Michael Douglas, in his Oscar-winning performance as Gordon Gekko, proclaims: “Greed is good.”
** MAD MEN: “THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS” REVOLVE AROUND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL MEN AND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL BIZ. … From my September 20th essay.
** EXPENDABLE ARNOLD: WHAT’S AHEAD FOR SCHWARZENEGGER?Arnold Schwarzenegger was back from his last big trip to Asia as governor of California and sounded pretty sick. But he powered through a Friday appearance giving out the annual awards of his Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. The overall numbers for the program were pretty impressive, with big increases in fitness activity levels for California schoolkids.
Still, another set of new numbers may have more bearing on Schwarzenegger’s future. Then there’s the usual state budget stalemate and the fights over the fate of the landmark climate change program Schwarzenegger helped enact and whether Jerry Brown or billionaire Republican Meg Whitman — now the biggest spending candidate in American history — will succeed him as governor. … From my September 18th column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, 2008, crude oil closed on Friday at $76.49 per barrel. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $42 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s bizarre speculation that the U.S. government was behind the 9/11 attacks, expressed yesterday in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, continues to overshadow the annual UN gathering.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … WHY ON EARTH DOES JERRY BROWN WANT TO BE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA?
** QUICK HITS.Reports are surfacing that Iran’s rogue nuclear program has been targeted by a sophisticated cyber-attack. The “Stuxnet worm” attacks Siemens systems believed to be used in Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility and elsewhere. Iranian officials have recently declared their willingness to negotiate anew on their nuclear program. … California’s first execution since 2006 has been greenlit by the courts for next week. The state’s lethal injection procedure was revamped to meet concerns that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment. On that basis, Attorney General Jerry Brown successfully argued that the execution should now lawfully go forward. Opponents have tried to say that this is a flip-flop by Brown, who personally opposes the death penalty. But Brown has long and repeatedly pledged to uphold the state’s capital punishment law. …
** FIELD AND FIORINA’S PROBLEM (AND WHITMAN’S PROBLEM, TOO).The new Field Poll, rolling out slowly as it always does, shows today that in the race for the U.S. Senate in California, Senator Barbara Boxer has opened up a six-point lead over her Republican challenger, ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
It’s Boxer 47%, Fiorina 41%.
Readers know that I don’t find the Senate race nearly as compelling as the race for governor of California. In part because it’s probably not as consequential, and in part because it is a far more straightforward proposition.
Boxer is relatively unpopular, and a bit too liberal for California, but she’s an effective campaigner up against an opponent who does not have overwhelming financial resources. And Fiorina is too conservative for California.
Fiorina has done nothing since winning the Republican primary, long expected here, to get closer to the center line of California politics.
She seems to think that she is igniting popular support with this stance, but the Field Poll shows that most of her voters are for her because she’s not Boxer, not because she’s Carly Fiorina. Whereas most of Boxer’s voters are for her because they are for her.
So Boxer has opened up a little daylight on Fiorina. The ex-CEO has just gone on the air with a sort of nyah-nyah TV ad knocking Boxer for “arrogance,” showing footage of her telling a general that she prefers to be called “Senator” rather than “Ma’am.”
While I’m sure that has Republican activists shaking their fists, I don’t know what that does to motivate a middle of the road voter to go with Fiorina.
Well, Boxer hasn’t really unloaded on Fiorina yet on the character front and out-of-step fronts, and there is a great deal there.
Fiorina is on the verge of becoming precisely what billionaire Meg Whitman feared she would be, an albatross around her political neck.
Whitman encouraged ex-Congressman Tom Campbell to drop out of the governor’s race and run for Senate again for two reasons. First, because Campbell pulled moderate votes Whitman needed in a three-way primary fight. Second, because she didn’t want to run on a ticket with Fiorina.
Many people conflate Whitman and Fiorina, two very rich and entitled ex-CEOs from Silicon Valley who were top officials in the McCain/Palin campaign and are now trying to start at the top in elected office. That’s not good for Whitman.
It will be even worse if voters are forced to choose to vote for one and not the other, as the only thing holding Whitman up in the governor’s race is her record-shattering spending.
President Barack Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly yesterday in New York, laying out a vision for American leadership in the 21st century, including the shaky proposition of peace in the Middle East. His speech was overshadowed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech claiming that the U.S. government was behind 9/11, which in turn overshadowed back-channel talks between the U.S. and Iran.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in New York and Washington.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings.
His schedule today reflects more of a Central Asian focus than many would have suspected.
At 8:15 AM Pacific, Obama holds a bilateral meeting with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
Azerbaijan is energy-rich, in a pipeline corridor, and locked in perpetual struggle with Armenia.
At 9:15 AM Pacific, Obama holds a bilateral meeting with President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón of Colombia at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
Though it gets little U.S. coverage, including here, Colombia is a major focus of U.S. anti-drug and military assistance activities. Colombian forces just killed the military commander of FARC, the longtime leftist rebel movement.
At 10 AM Pacific, Obama attends a working luncheon with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) leaders at the United Nations Building.
At 12:15 PM Pacific, Obama attends a Ministerial Meeting on Sudan at the United Nations Building. Two self-determination votes, which could lead to the breakup of Africa’s largest nation, are set for January but are behind schedule.
At 2 PM Pacific, Obama holds a bilateral meeting with President Roza Otunbayeva of Krygyzstan at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
Otunbayeva is Kyrgyzstan’s new leader, following a coup tacitly backed by Russia. It is also the site of a U.S. air base that is very central to the war in neighboring Afghanistan. The U.S. has wanted to set up a special ops base there as well, but the new government has not been as welcoming as the old government was.
At 3:55 PM Pacific, Obama departs New York on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 4:45 PM Pacific, Obama arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One.
At 5 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
For his part, Vice President Joe Biden travels to Miami this morning. He attends an event for Delaware Senate candidate Chris Coons, now favored over a Tea Party Republican, as well as a fundraiser for the Florida Democratic Party.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unresolved more than six months after national parliamentary elections.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
Still under the weather with a respiratory ailment following his Asian trade mission, he will hold private talks.
He will also meet with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, and sign memoranda of understanding between California and Chile on cooperative projects.
He met yesterday with legislative leaders, who have been none too anxious to move, on the ongoing state budget impasse.
The meeting took place at Schwarzenegger’s very colorful private office at his Oak Productions in Santa Monica.
Schwarzenegger press secretary Aaron McLear said after the meeting that a framework for a new state budget has been agreed upon.
But talks will continue to fill in that framework today and over the weekend.
Last Friday broke the all-time record for the longest that the state Legislature has gone without passing a budget.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** OBAMA STRUGGLES WITH FEAR OF “THIRD WORLD AMERICA” AMIDST MEDIA AND BANDWIDTH CHALLENGES.Less than six weeks before crucial national mid-term elections, Barack Obama, the wide bandwidth president dealing with the narrow bandwidth media, is in a real quandary. He’s enacted one of the most sweeping agendas in recent memory, but gets relatively little credit for himself and, more importantly at the moment, his Democratic allies. Indeed, many worry that the nation is sliding into what Arianna Huffington in her latest book calls Third World America.
As Huffington puts it in her book, “We are obviously not yet a Third World nation. But we are well on our way. This is the unspoken fear of so many out-of-work Americans and those still at work but anxious about their futures and the futures of their children.”
In another characteristic of potential Third World-ism, the super-rich and powerful got all they could ask for in the massive bailout of Wall Street — after nearly crashing the global economy with their boneheaded machinations — and still haven’t turned around to re-inflate the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, America’s decrepit infrastructure got relative short shrift, and most Americans continue to struggle with stalled or declining incomes.
When Obama and his team took office, America was poised at the edge of the abyss. We’ve pulled back from that precipice, but the recovery is sluggish at best, the mood sour, and Obama gets precious little credit for helping avert an economic apocalypse.
In addition to whatever deficiencies exist in his policies, Obama suffers from pursuing a very wide bandwidth presidency in an era with a very shallow, ADD-oriented, media culture. …From my September 23rd column.
Michael Douglas returns in his Academy Award-winning role as the iconic Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, opening today. The film is tracking well.
** MAD MEN: “THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS” REVOLVE AROUND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL MEN AND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL BIZ. … From my September 20th essay.
** EXPENDABLE ARNOLD: WHAT’S AHEAD FOR SCHWARZENEGGER?Arnold Schwarzenegger was back from his last big trip to Asia as governor of California and sounded pretty sick. But he powered through a Friday appearance giving out the annual awards of his Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. The overall numbers for the program were pretty impressive, with big increases in fitness activity levels for California schoolkids.
Still, another set of new numbers may have more bearing on Schwarzenegger’s future. Then there’s the usual state budget stalemate and the fights over the fate of the landmark climate change program Schwarzenegger helped enact and whether Jerry Brown or billionaire Republican Meg Whitman — now the biggest spending candidate in American history — will succeed him as governor. … From my September 18th column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $42 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Congressional Republican leaders today rolled out a “Pledge To America” agenda today at a suburban Washington hardware store. Curiously, it’s largely a recycling of the Bush/Cheney Administration agenda.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … WHY ON EARTH DOES JERRY BROWN WANT TO BE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA?
** QUICK HITS.U.S. representatives walked out of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech to the UN General Assembly today at which the embattled leader promoted speculation that the U.S. government was involved in the 9/11 attacks. It’s as though he doesn’t want there to be any negotiation as the international community condemns and sanctions his regime for its rogue nuclear program. … Back in Washington, the House is about to pass a major Obama-backed bill to assist small businesses and promote job development, which finally made it through the Republican blockade in the Senate. But Senate Republicans, using the filibuster power, unanimously blocked legislation to require disclosure of the source of secret corporate advertising campaigns in elections. … In Los Angeles, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders reportedly made significant progress in the California budget impasse, now at record length. A framework has reportedly been agreed on, with details to be worked out over the weekend.
Incidentally, when a very suspect robopoll purported recently to show Whitman leading Brown by six points, Whitman chief strategist Mike Murphy told some people that she was even further ahead in her private polling! Unfortunately for Murphy, the state’s political press corps is catching on to his non-serious statements, even if some folks in Washington still haven’t. (Of course, most of the California press corps caught on to Murphy during his stint as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s chief strategist, and the disastrous 2005 special election, but most of those folks are gone, replaced by inexperienced and not particularly knowledgeable reporters.)
Field has it at Jerry Brown 41%, Meg Whitman 41%. The poll, as usual, was conducted over too lengthy a period of time, eight days, September 14th through September 21st. Which means there could be some movement within the poll not reflected by the product itself.
Brown is underperforming with Democrats, the main factor in the race, as I’ve already discussed. And the reasons, which Field doesn’t get into, are pretty clearcut. Brown has only recently gone on the air, billionaire Whitman has been on for months on end with her record-shattering campaign, Brown’s ads are not overwhelming and have been jammed to an extent by Whitman’s false “Bill Clinton” ad. The reality that the ad is dishonest through and through is only now sinking in.
Too bad for Whitman that this will be such a boomerang. For now, however, the race is tied, though two polls I don’t have tremendous faith in, Public Policy Polling and the hinky Survey USA robo-poll, have Brown ahead, 47-42 and 46-43. Survey USA purports to show a big 10-point swing to Brown over the past two weeks. I say its poll was wrong back then.
Field is a useful poll, but it’s now just one of a number of polls, public and private, despite force of habit among old-time journos.
Meanwhile, Meg Whitman finally announced her position on Prop 23, the initiative to do away with California’s landmark climate change program. Even though Whitman is against the program, which she says she’d never have signed — it actually has tremendous flexibility built into it, despite what the lobbyists who surround Whitman claim — she has finally decided to vote No on 23.
Why? Need you ask? Prop 23 is in big trouble, and is in fact toxic as it’s funded almost entirely by the oil industry, and principally by out-of-state oil interests.
So Whitman thinks, foolishly, that she can avoid getting dinged for being against the most important climate change/renewable energy program in the country and pretend that she is pro-environment and pro-greentech.
Brown isn’t having it, and, after challenging her repeatedly on the issue, today denounced her in much the same manner you just read.
Brown’s campaign also today launched a new TV ad attacking Whitman for her insistence that she can balance the budget through undisclosed means while eliminating the capital gains tax entirely. It’s a good, workmanlike ad, hitting her in an obvious area of vulnerability discussed many times here.
In the other big statewide race, ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, having allowed Senator Barbara Boxer to get the jump on her last week with the first TV ads of the general election race, is out today with her first ad.
It’s a hit on Boxer for her supposed arrogance in insisting that a general address her as “Senator” rather than “Ma’am.” The Fiorina campaign still feels like it’s in semi-primary mode.
** OBAMA STRUGGLES WITH FEAR OF “THIRD WORLD AMERICA” AMIDST MEDIA AND BANDWIDTH CHALLENGES.Less than six weeks before crucial national mid-term elections, Barack Obama, the wide bandwidth president dealing with the narrow bandwidth media, is in a real quandary. He’s enacted one of the most sweeping agendas in recent memory, but gets relatively little credit for himself and, more importantly at the moment, his Democratic allies. Indeed, many worry that the nation is sliding into what Arianna Huffington in her latest book calls Third World America.
As Huffington puts it in her book, “We are obviously not yet a Third World nation. But we are well on our way. This is the unspoken fear of so many out-of-work Americans and those still at work but anxious about their futures and the futures of their children.”
In another characteristic of potential Third World-ism, the super-rich and powerful got all they could ask for in the massive bailout of Wall Street — after nearly crashing the global economy with their boneheaded machinations — and still haven’t turned around to re-inflate the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, America’s decrepit infrastructure got relative short shrift, and most Americans continue to struggle with stalled or declining incomes.
When Obama and his team took office, America was poised at the edge of the abyss. We’ve pulled back from that precipice, but the recovery is sluggish at best, the mood sour, and Obama gets precious little credit for helping avert an economic apocalypse.
In addition to whatever deficiencies exist in his policies, Obama suffers from pursuing a very wide bandwidth presidency in an era with a very shallow, ADD-oriented, media culture. …
President Barack Obama spoke late yesterday at the Millennium Development Goals Conference at the United Nations Building on his plan for global development.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in New York City.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings.
At 7 AM Pacific, Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly in the United Nations Building.
At 8 AM Pacific, Obama held a bilateral meeting with Premier Wen Jiabao of China at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
At 10:15 AM Pacific, Obama attends a luncheon hosted by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at United Nations Headquarters.
At 12:50 PM Pacific, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama join former President Bill Clinton to address the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers.
At 2:10 PM Pacific, Obama holds a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
At 4:15 PM Pacific, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama host a reception in honor of heads of delegation attending the United Nations General Assembly at the Natural History Museum.
For his part, Vice President Joe Biden has a busy day in the Washington area.
He attends an event for Senator Barbara Mikulski in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Then he and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius host a conference call with senior citizens on the Affordable Care Act.
Following that, Biden meets with British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, whose Liberal Democrats are partners in Britain’s new coalition government with the Conservative Party.
Biden then meets with the recipients of the Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unresolved more than six months after national parliamentary elections.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
Still under the weather with a respiratory ailment following his Asian trade mission, he will hold private talks.
He met yesterday with legislative leaders, who have been none too anxious to move, on the ongoing state budget impasse.
The meeting took place at Schwarzenegger’s very colorful private office at his Oak Productions in Santa Monica.
That is probably the most noteworthy thing about the meeting.
Friday broke the all-time record for the longest that the state Legislature has gone without passing a budget.
Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman blames Schwarzenegger for the delay, saying that he should not have taken a large business delegation on his trade mission to Asia. And that he should have, you know, acted really tough.
Whitman doesn’t understand what’s going on.
The Legislature has shown no particular interest in adopting a budget in any timely manner. Click on my latest Huffington Post feature below to see why.
Short form answer? Continued delay helps the already good prospects for Proposition 25, which would change the current two-thirds legislative vote requirement for budget passage — California is the only major state with such a requirement — to a majority vote.
As if on cue, TV ads for Prop 25 began on Monday.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps opens tomorrow. Is the sequel to the 1987 classic Wall Street, with Michael Douglas reprising his Oscar-winning role as the iconic Gordon Gekko, too late, or right on time.
** MAD MEN: “THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS” REVOLVE AROUND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL MEN AND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL BIZ. … From my September 20th essay.
** EXPENDABLE ARNOLD: WHAT’S AHEAD FOR SCHWARZENEGGER?Arnold Schwarzenegger was back from his last big trip to Asia as governor of California and sounded pretty sick. But he powered through a Friday appearance giving out the annual awards of his Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. The overall numbers for the program were pretty impressive, with big increases in fitness activity levels for California schoolkids.
Still, another set of new numbers may have more bearing on Schwarzenegger’s future. Then there’s the usual state budget stalemate and the fights over the fate of the landmark climate change program Schwarzenegger helped enact and whether Jerry Brown or billionaire Republican Meg Whitman — now the biggest spending candidate in American history — will succeed him as governor.
The Expendables went over $100 million in domestic box office this weekend. The Expendables is the old school action flick, directed by and starring Schwarzenegger’s old rival-turned-pal Sylvester Stallone, which has become a late summer hit movie. Part of that is due to Schwarzenegger. He has only a cameo role in the picture — one scene which he filmed in a few hours last year — but it was heavily publicized in trailers, advertising, and PR as a sort of summit meeting of classic action stars. And Schwarzenegger appeared with his friend Stallone in LA and Vegas to help promote the movie. … From my September 18th column.
** BILL CLINTON HEARTS JERRY BROWN! (AND OTHER TALES OF INTRIGUE)For a debacle, this is certainly working out very nicely for Jerry Brown.
I’m referring to his widely publicized joke on Sunday, in which he seemed to many to have wrecked his chances for backing from former President Bill Clinton, whose long-ago false attack (based on a very inaccurate CNN report) on Brown is featured in billionaire Meg Whitman’s thoroughly debunked anti-Brown TV ad.
Clinton on Tuesday issued a very snappy endorsement of Jerry Brown. In the process, he denounced Whitman’s latest TV attack ad against Brown.
With Clinton’s endorsement in hand, less than 48 hours after Brown told a rather mild joke in Los Angeles questioning the consistency of Clinton’s veracity, Brown thanked his former presidential campaign rival for his backing and pivoted to the launch of two new 15-second attack ads against Whitman which brand her a liar.
Was Brown’s Sunday joke, for which he apologized Monday, a gaffe or a gambit?
The effect of Brown’s action was to place more attention on Whitman’s TV ad and on the question of whether or not Clinton, who was with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday, would endorse him. My reporting told me all along that the former president — who had a very nasty campaign against Brown for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992 — would nonetheless back his former rival and denounce Whitman’s TV ad. He just, well, hadn’t gotten around to it yet. …From my September 16th feature.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $40 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Before flying to New York to spend the rest of the week on foreign policy matters, President Barack Obama this morning sought to reintroduce his national health care reform bill that is so controversial and confusing six months after its passage.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA’S BANDWIDTH AND MEDIA CHALLENGES AND THE FEAR OF THIRD WORLD AMERICA.
** QUICK HITS. California First Lady Maria Shriver has arranged for Jerry Brown, billionaire Meg Whitman, and of course her husband, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, to appear jointly in a discussion of California’s future at the 2010 Womens’ Conference in Long Beach one week before the election. Today Show host Matt Lauer will moderate the discussion between the three. Lauer, as some will remember, conducted a live interview with Schwarzenegger shortly after he announced his “surprise” candidacy for governor of California in 2003. It did not go well for the tired governor-to-be. … Still ailing from a bad cold he caught on his Asian trade mission, Schwarzenegger conducted a “Big 5″ meeting with legislative leaders on the state’s very predictable budget impasse today at his Oak Productions office in Santa Monica. Schwarzenegger’s office is exactly like mine. Each has Warhols, each has at least one likeness of Schwarzenegger, though mine is a bobblehead doll whereas his principal likeness is a lifesize Terminator, each office, well, that’s probably the extent of the similarity, come to think of it. Suffice to say that no political office in America looks like this. The fabled “Smoking Tent” in Sacramento, which I expect to be turned into a “Zen Tent,” has nothing on this place.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: WHERE THE GOVERNOR’S RACE IS NOW, AND WHY. Jerry Brown does not lead billionaire Republican Meg Whitman in the governor’s race. At least, not yet, though some expected he would.
And despite the fact that he does lead her in a new public poll.
There are three brand new public polls in the race. None are good news for Whitman.
Incidentally, the Fox News poll is a Rasmussen poll, and readers know that I don’t think much of the Rasmussen operation, frequently used to create media narratives. More specifically, the Fox News poll is a re-branded Rasmussen poll, conducted by a robo-polling outfit called Pulse Opinion Research, which was established by Rasmussen as another profit-making venture — people can do their own instant polls, supplying their own questions, for a fee — uses Rasmussen’s robo-poll techniques, and actually conducts the polls released under the Rasmussen brand.
If this sounds like a way to further the flood the zone with Rasmussen polls to affect those “poll averaging” operations, of course it is.
Fox News came out with the tie result between Whitman and Brown, which contradicted the most recent Rasmussen poll, showing a Whitman lead.
So, voila, suddenly, there is a brand new Rasmussen poll showing Brown with a 1-point edge, i.e., a statistical tie.
Rasmussen doesn’t generally explain the make-up of his polls, making them obviously prone to manipulation, so one might assume that the Public Policy Polling survey, with a 5-point Brown lead over Whitman, is where the race is. However, the PPP poll assumes a whopping 16-point edge for Democrats over Republicans in partisan make-up of the electorate. That’s actually slightly more than the Democratic registration edge in the state, which is 14 points, and probably significantly more than the likely turnout in a non-presidential election.
Still, there may be some decline to state/independents as self-identified Democrats in the PPP poll. Or maybe the poll is just flawed. It is, after all, a robo-poll.
I don’t think that Jerry Brown is ahead. I think the race is still even, and so does Brown.
I think that Jerry Brown should be ahead. So why isn’t he?
There are a couple of reasons for this.
There was an assumption in some circles that if Brown reached Labor Day weekend running even with Whitman — after all her barrages of advertising, only somewhat countered by the California Working Families and Working Families independent expenditure groups — he would immediately take the lead after he finally went on the air himself.
That didn’t happen. For two reasons.
First, Brown’s ads introduced him to the electorate, or reintroduced him, for those who knew him, but did not present an especially compelling message. And Brown’s message on the stump has lacked the needed repetitiveness.
Second, Brown’s introduction advertising was jammed by Whitman’s thoroughly dishonest TV ad featuring false charges from Bill Clinton in a 1992 presidential campaign debate.
That confused the low-hanging fruit, so to speak, of soft Democrats and independents who should be for Brown.
In the end, the Whitman ad will be a big mistake, because it is a thoroughgoing lie. And there are already signs that people are catching on, though early last week and late the week before that was not the case.
So here’s where we are. The race is clearly there to be won by Brown. He has survived Whitman’s months-long onslaught without falling behind, as most so-called experts repeatedly said he would. He has survived Whitman’s phony “Bill Clinton” ad, and there is a backlash ready to be stoked.
But Brown needs to come up with better TV advertising and a focused, passionate, and compellingly consistent message in order to ensure his victory.
** NEW POLL: AS OBAMA TURNS HIS ATTENTION TO FOREIGN POLICY FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK, AMERICANS STILL CARE MOST ABOUT THE ECONOMY BY FAR. Having tried to to deal, once again, with his controversial health care program this morning, President Barack Obama is off to New York, spending the rest of the week focused, once again, on foreign policy.
But a new Gallup Poll shows that Americans care far more about lingering economic woes, and the sluggish recovery, and place far more hope in Republicans than they should based on the record of the eight years prior to Obama’s election.
The economy in general and the specific economic problem of unemployment or lack of jobs far outpace all other issues when Americans are asked to name the most important problem facing the country. Only one other issue — dissatisfaction with government — is mentioned by at least 10% of Americans. …
Although Americans may be inclined to disagree, the National Bureau of Economic Research on Monday announced that the recession that began in December 2007 officially ended in June 2009. Still, the economy remains sluggish and the unemployment rate continues to exceed 9%. President Obama made jobs the centerpiece of his televised town hall meeting on Monday.
The economy and jobs have been the two most commonly mentioned problems each month this year. Healthcare and natural disaster response (related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill) have at times approached the economic issues in frequency of mentions, and a fairly consistent percentage has mentioned dissatisfaction with the government. …
Going further back, either the economy or jobs has been the top issue mentioned each month since February 2008, when the economy overtook Iraq. During this time, the economy usually has been the top issue, though jobs tied the economy in February 2010 and topped it in March and April 2010.
Those Citing Jobs, Economy Differ as to Which Party Better on That Issue
The Sept. 13-16 poll also asked Americans to say which party would better handle the problem they think is most important. Overall, Americans are divided as to which would better handle that problem, with 40% saying the Republican Party and 38% the Democratic Party.
However, there is a difference of opinion as to which political party would better handle jobs and which party would better handle the economy among those who cite each as the most important problem. Those mentioning the economy believe the Republican Party would better address the issue than the Democratic Party, while those who say jobs is the top issue think the Democratic Party would better handle that issue.
Bottom Line
It is clear that economic concerns are paramount in voters’ minds with the midterm elections less than two months away. A poor economy makes re-election challenging for incumbents, especially those from the governing party. Consistent with this, Gallup’s tracking of 2010 election voting preferences continues to suggest that Republicans’ electoral prospects are better than Democrats’. However, the extent to which voters’ concerns center more around the specific issue of jobs and less around the economy more generally could provide an opportunity for Democrats to improve their party’s standing this fall.
Incidentally, the Jobs/Economy dichotomy, which seems very odd, shows how the framing of a poll can dictate its results. And why framing a campaign message in a consistent way is so important.
Right, Governor Brown?
President Barack Obama yesterday awarded the nation’s highest decoration for heroism, the Medal of Honor, to the late Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Robert Etchberg, killed by North Vietnamese forces in 1968 during the evacuation of a secret forward air controller base in Laos.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington, Virginia, and New York.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
Focusing on health care reform, he then dropped by a meeting with insurance commissioners in the Eisenhower Executive Office Bldg.
At 8:45 AM Pacific, Obama holds a backyard discussion on health care reform and the new Patient’s Bill of Rights which he and the Congress enacted earlier this year at a private residence in Falls Church, Virginia.
At 11:45 AM Pacific, Obama departs the White House on Marine One for Andrews Air Force Base.
At 12 noon Pacific, Obama departs Andrews Air Force Base on Air Force One en route to New York City.
At 12:55 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in New York City.
At 1:45 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at the Millennium Development Goals Conference at the United Nations Building.
At 3:35 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee/Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee event at the Roosevelt Hotel.
At 4:30 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a DSCC/DCCC dinner at the Roosevelt Hotel.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unresolved more than six months after national parliamentary elections.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He will meet with legislative leaders, who have been none too anxious to move, on the ongoing state budget impasse.
Schwarzenegger was to have been in Sacramento for private talks, but was still heavily under the weather over the weekend and missed his big No on 23 event at former Secretary of State George Shultz’s home.
Schwarzenegger was originally to have spoken yesterday at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York on climate change, but it was clear that he was not going to be flying cross-country to give a major speech.
Friday broke the all-time record for the longest that the state Legislature has gone without passing a budget.
Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman blames Schwarzenegger for the delay, saying that he should not have taken a large business delegation on his trade mission to Asia. And that he should have, you know, acted really tough.
Whitman doesn’t understand what’s going on.
The Legislature has shown no particular interest in adopting a budget in any timely manner. Click on my latest Huffington Post feature below to see why.
Short form answer? Continued delay helps the already good prospects for Proposition 25, which would change the current two-thirds legislative vote requirement for budget passage — California is the only major state with such a requirement — to a majority vote.
As if on cue, TV ads for Prop 25 began on Monday.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps launches on Friday. Oliver Stone’s sequel to his 1987 film Wall Street stars Michael Douglas in a reprise of his Oscar-winning performance as Gordon Gekko. “I once said that ‘Greed is good.’ Now I find that it’s legal.”
** MAD MEN: “THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS” REVOLVE AROUND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL MEN AND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL BIZ. … From my September 20th essay.
** EXPENDABLE ARNOLD: WHAT’S AHEAD FOR SCHWARZENEGGER?Arnold Schwarzenegger was back from his last big trip to Asia as governor of California and sounded pretty sick. But he powered through a Friday appearance giving out the annual awards of his Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. The overall numbers for the program were pretty impressive, with big increases in fitness activity levels for California schoolkids.
Still, another set of new numbers may have more bearing on Schwarzenegger’s future. Then there’s the usual state budget stalemate and the fights over the fate of the landmark climate change program Schwarzenegger helped enact and whether Jerry Brown or billionaire Republican Meg Whitman — now the biggest spending candidate in American history — will succeed him as governor.
The Expendables went over $100 million in domestic box office this weekend. The Expendables is the old school action flick, directed by and starring Schwarzenegger’s old rival-turned-pal Sylvester Stallone, which has become a late summer hit movie. Part of that is due to Schwarzenegger. He has only a cameo role in the picture — one scene which he filmed in a few hours last year — but it was heavily publicized in trailers, advertising, and PR as a sort of summit meeting of classic action stars. And Schwarzenegger appeared with his friend Stallone in LA and Vegas to help promote the movie. … From my September 18th column.
** BILL CLINTON HEARTS JERRY BROWN! (AND OTHER TALES OF INTRIGUE)For a debacle, this is certainly working out very nicely for Jerry Brown.
I’m referring to his widely publicized joke on Sunday, in which he seemed to many to have wrecked his chances for backing from former President Bill Clinton, whose long-ago false attack (based on a very inaccurate CNN report) on Brown is featured in billionaire Meg Whitman’s thoroughly debunked anti-Brown TV ad.
Clinton on Tuesday issued a very snappy endorsement of Jerry Brown. In the process, he denounced Whitman’s latest TV attack ad against Brown.
With Clinton’s endorsement in hand, less than 48 hours after Brown told a rather mild joke in Los Angeles questioning the consistency of Clinton’s veracity, Brown thanked his former presidential campaign rival for his backing and pivoted to the launch of two new 15-second attack ads against Whitman which brand her a liar.
Was Brown’s Sunday joke, for which he apologized Monday, a gaffe or a gambit?
The effect of Brown’s action was to place more attention on Whitman’s TV ad and on the question of whether or not Clinton, who was with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday, would endorse him. My reporting told me all along that the former president — who had a very nasty campaign against Brown for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992 — would nonetheless back his former rival and denounce Whitman’s TV ad. He just, well, hadn’t gotten around to it yet. …From my September 16th feature.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $40 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Senate Republicans today invoked filibuster to block the move to end the “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” policy on gays in the military dating back to the Clinton Administration.
** QUICK HITS. A busy day today. … President Barack Obama’s economic team, regarded by many as too pro-Wall Street even as Wall Street grumbles, is going to get some new leadership. Obama’s chief economic advisor, former Clinton era Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, is leaving late this year to return to Harvard. Obama only recently enacted Wall Street reform legislation, which is the most popular of his domestic accomplishments, suggesting that he might be doing better had he led with that. … First Lady Michelle Obama will campaign with Senator Barbara Boxer next month in California. … Also in California, budget negotiations will resume tomorrow in LA when legislative leaders go there to meet with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who came down with a bug on his Asian trade mission. … But there is a substantial amount of shadow play involved here, as delay on the budget improves already good prospects for an initiative, Prop 25, to change the state’s two-thirds legislative vote requirement to pass a budget to a simply majority. With a new record set for a tardy budget at the end of last week, the pro-25 forces rolled out a good TV ad late yesterday noting the budget impasse and calling for passage of the initiative. … Meanwhile, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar is refusing to endorse ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman in her race for governor of California.
** NEW POLL: DEMOCRATS INCHING BACK ON GENERIC CONGRESSIONAL BALLOT. Generic congressional race polls have bounced all over the place, with Democrats even ahead at times, but usually behind. Now the latest Gallup Poll has Democrats in a dead heat with Republicans for the second week of the past three.
In the latest Gallup soundings, it’s Democrats 46%, Republicans 45%. Republicans have a large edge in voter enthusiasm.
On a monthly basis, Democrats have gone from a six-point deficit to running even.
Though it’s not shown in this poll, Republicans have a huge edge in the South but trail or are in roughly the same shape as Democrats in other regions of the country.
Gallup’s generic ballot for Congress for the week of Sept. 13-19 shows a 46% Democratic and 45% Republican split in registered voters’ preferences for the midterm congressional elections. It is the second week out of the last three in which the two parties have been virtually tied. …
Gallup’s tracking shows a shift from a 49% to 43% Republican advantage in August to a 46% to 45% GOP advantage so far in September. Both of these estimates are based on very large samples, with more than 7,000 interviews conducted in August and more than 5,600 so far in September. …
Republicans have so far this month lost a little of the unprecedented strength they had among registered voters in August. Voting intentions among registered voters from Sept. 1-19 show a virtual tie between Republicans and Democrats, which is down from the six-point Republican advantage in August. Gallup will begin estimating the voting preferences of the probable 2010 electorate in October, which is highly likely to show a larger Republican advantage than is seen among registered voters.
The pace of midterm congressional election campaigning is beginning to pick up, both at the individual district level, and in terms of national news emphasis. Last week’s primary elections, for example, focused news attention on the potential impact of more conservative, Tea Party-backed Republican candidates on the general election. It is possible that further shifts in voter sentiment will be seen in the weeks ahead.
Nine troops were killed today in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, bringing the NATO death toll there this year to a record level.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 9:30 AM Pacific, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have lunch in the Private Dining Room.
At 10:15 AM Pacific, Obama posthumously awards the Medal of Honor to Chief Master Sergeant Richard L. Etchberger, U.S. Air Force, in the East Room.
In March 1968, Etchberger was helping run a secret radar base in Laos directing air strikes in North Vietnam and Laos. When the North Vietnamese got wind of it, they attacked the base. Etchberger’s heroism helped save the rest of the unit, but he was mortally wounded in the effort. Because the U.S. base in Laos was in violation of international law, the battle was classified and Etchberger’s heroism went unpublicized for many years.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Defense Secretary Bob Gates in the Oval Office.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unresolved more than six months after national parliamentary elections.
Five months after the explosive destruction of BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform, the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill is finally permanently plugged.
In much better news, the BP Gulf oil spill is over, with the well a mile beneath the sea permanently plugged.
But the fallout, and environmental damage, will last for a very long time.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
Schwarzenegger was to have been in Sacramento yesterday and today for private talks, but was still heavily under the weather over the weekend and missed his big No on 23 event at former Secretary of State George Shultz’s home.
Schwarzenegger was originally to have spoken today at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York on climate change, but it was clear that he was not going to be flying cross-country to give a major speech.
Schwarzenegger was also to have attended the Border Governors Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico — hosted by his friend, new Mexico Governor Bill Richardson — but canceled on Sunday due to the budget impasse.
Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado is attending in Schwarzenegger’s stead.
Friday broke the all-time record for the longest that the state Legislature has gone without passing a budget.
Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman blames Schwarzenegger for the delay, saying that he should not have taken a large business delegation on his trade mission to Asia. And that he should have, you know, acted really tough.
Whitman doesn’t understand what’s going on.
The Legislature has shown no particular interest in adopting a budget in any timely manner. Click on my latest Huffington Post feature below to see why.
Short form answer? Continued delay helps the already good prospects for Proposition 25, which would change the current two-thirds legislative vote requirement for budget passage — California is the only major state with such a requirement — to a majority vote.
As if on cue, TV ads for Prop 25 began on Monday.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN: “THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS” REVOLVE AROUND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL MEN AND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL BIZ. … From my September 20th essay.
** EXPENDABLE ARNOLD: WHAT’S AHEAD FOR SCHWARZENEGGER?Arnold Schwarzenegger was back from his last big trip to Asia as governor of California and sounded pretty sick. But he powered through a Friday appearance giving out the annual awards of his Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. The overall numbers for the program were pretty impressive, with big increases in fitness activity levels for California schoolkids.
Still, another set of new numbers may have more bearing on Schwarzenegger’s future. Then there’s the usual state budget stalemate and the fights over the fate of the landmark climate change program Schwarzenegger helped enact and whether Jerry Brown or billionaire Republican Meg Whitman — now the biggest spending candidate in American history — will succeed him as governor.
The Expendables went over $100 million in domestic box office this weekend. The Expendables is the old school action flick, directed by and starring Schwarzenegger’s old rival-turned-pal Sylvester Stallone, which has become a late summer hit movie. Part of that is due to Schwarzenegger. He has only a cameo role in the picture — one scene which he filmed in a few hours last year — but it was heavily publicized in trailers, advertising, and PR as a sort of summit meeting of classic action stars. And Schwarzenegger appeared with his friend Stallone in LA and Vegas to help promote the movie. … From my September 18th column.
** BILL CLINTON HEARTS JERRY BROWN! (AND OTHER TALES OF INTRIGUE)For a debacle, this is certainly working out very nicely for Jerry Brown.
I’m referring to his widely publicized joke on Sunday, in which he seemed to many to have wrecked his chances for backing from former President Bill Clinton, whose long-ago false attack (based on a very inaccurate CNN report) on Brown is featured in billionaire Meg Whitman’s thoroughly debunked anti-Brown TV ad.
Clinton on Tuesday issued a very snappy endorsement of Jerry Brown. In the process, he denounced Whitman’s latest TV attack ad against Brown.
With Clinton’s endorsement in hand, less than 48 hours after Brown told a rather mild joke in Los Angeles questioning the consistency of Clinton’s veracity, Brown thanked his former presidential campaign rival for his backing and pivoted to the launch of two new 15-second attack ads against Whitman which brand her a liar.
Was Brown’s Sunday joke, for which he apologized Monday, a gaffe or a gambit?
The effect of Brown’s action was to place more attention on Whitman’s TV ad and on the question of whether or not Clinton, who was with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday, would endorse him. My reporting told me all along that the former president — who had a very nasty campaign against Brown for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992 — would nonetheless back his former rival and denounce Whitman’s TV ad. He just, well, hadn’t gotten around to it yet. …From my September 16th feature.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $39 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Former President Bill Clinton issued another rousing endorsement of Jerry Brown in this interview with Huffington Post and Yahoo News around the Clinton Global Initiative meeting this week in New York, denying state press reports of any feud with Brown.
** BILL CLINTON TALKS UP JERRY BROWN.Former President Bill Clinton talked up Jerry Brown, denounced billionaire Meg Whitman’s dishonest TV ad featuring him, and debunked longstanding tales of a Clinton-Brown feud in some elements of the California press corps in this interview today in New York with Willow Bay.
Meg Whitman has “made me a household face again, and brought in my younger self,” President Bill Clinton joked, clearly enjoying the last laugh in a political soap opera co-starring Republican candidate Meg Whitman and her opponent in the California governor’s race, Jerry Brown.
Whitman, who broke U.S. political records by becoming the first candidate to spend more than $119 million of her personal wealth on her own campaign, aired TV spots earlier this month — later proven to be inaccurate — that reprise the 1992 presidential debate where Clinton squared off against Jerry Brown.
Brown lobbed a few shots at the former President’s conduct in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. “I mean, Clinton’s a nice guy, but whoever said he always told the truth,” Brown said at a campaign stop last week, adding: “I did not have taxes with this state.” Last week, Brown apologized: “Bill Clinton was an excellent president. It was wrong for me to joke about an incident from many years ago, and I’m sorry.”
In an interview with Yahoo! News and The Huffington Post tied to the Clinton Global Initiative’s Annual Meeting this week, President Bill Clinton brushed aside the incident, and strongly endorsed Jerry Brown for the California governorship.
** MAD MEN: “THE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS” REVOLVE AROUND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL MEN AND THE NOT SO BEAUTIFUL BIZ.
President Barack Obama talked about delivering on campaign promises and efforts to revitalize the economy in his Saturday night address at the annual dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
It’s a busy week in presidential politics, and in California politics.
Intriguingly, despite the nation’s focus on the sputtering economic recovery, President Barack Obama is scheduled to spend most of his time this week on foreign policy, with the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting taking place in New York. Perhaps he assumes that the Republicans’ recent lurch further to the right will do some of his work for him.
In California politics, Jerry Brown comes out swinging this week against billionaire Republican Meg Whitman on California’s landmark climate change/renewable energy program. Wannabe governor Whitman has consistently said she’d suspend the law, even end it altogether. But she won’t take a position on Proposition 23, the oil industry-backed initiative to scrap it.
Senator Barbara Boxer got the jump last week on ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina with a pair of new TV ads, one a positive one extolling Boxer’s own record, the other a devastating negative spot on Fiorina’s corporate record. We’ll see this week if Fiorina can fight back.
Meanwhile, California’s chronic budget crisis drags on.
On Monday, Obama will participate in a live CNBC town hall on jobs. Later, he will travel to Philadelphia to help Congressman and retired Navy Admiral Joe Sestak’s Senate campaign.
On Tuesday, Obama will award the late Chief Master Sergeant Richard L. Etchberger, U.S. Air Force, the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry. Etchberger will receive the Medal of Honor posthumously for his heroic actions in combat on March 11, 1968, in the country of Laos.
Etchberger was helping run a secret radar base there directing air strikes in North Vietnam and Laos. When the North Vietnamese got wind of it, they attacked the base. Etchberger’s heroism helped save the rest of the unit, but he was mortally wounded in the effort. Because the U.S. base in Laos was in violation of international law, the battle was classified and Etchberger’s heroism went unpublicized for many years.
On Wednesday, Obama will hold an event on the Patients’ Bill of Rights. In the afternoon, the President will travel to New York City for the UN General Assembly. He will also attend an event for the DSCC/DCCC joint committee in the evening.
On Thursday, Obama will address the United Nations in New York City. Later, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will join former President Bill Clinton to address the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in New York City. Obama will also hold bilateral meetings with Chinese Premier Wen and Japanese Prime Minister Kan.
On Friday, Obama will attend meetings as part of the UN General Assembly, including attend a UN-hosted meeting on Sudan to look ahead at the critical 2011 referendum. Obama will also host a meeting with leaders of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in New York City. Obama has invited the leaders of the ten ASEAN member states as well as ASEAN’s Secretary General to join him for the second ever U.S.-ASEAN leaders meeting. In the evening, he will return to Washington, DC.
Afghanistan had national parliamentary elections on Saturday. Reports indicate a light turnout, with polling places not even opening in much of the country due to the threat of Taliban attacks.
In Iraq, there may be some progress on ending the six-month impasse following that country’s national parliamentary elections. Secular Sunni moderate Ayad Allawi, whose party finished first, may become Iraq’s president, while a Shiite politician who is not current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki may take over the premiereship.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in America this week for the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, said on Sunday that “The future belongs to Iran.”
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Pennsylvania.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 9 AM Pacific, Obama participates in a CNBC town hall discussion on jobs at the Newseum in Washington.
At 12:05 PM Pacific, Obama departs the White House on Marine One for Andrews Air Force Base.
At 12:20 PM Pacific, Obama departs Andrews Air Force Base on Air Force One en route to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
At 1:05 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in Philadelphia.
At 2:10 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a finance reception for Congressman and retired Navy Admiral Joe Sestak, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
At 3:05 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a dinner reception for Congressman Sestak, also at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
At 4:20 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a Democratic National Committee dinner reception at the Pyramid Club.
At 5:15 PM Pacific, Obama departs Philadelphia on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 5:55 PM Pacific, Obama arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One.
At 6:05 PM Pacific, Obama arrives lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
For his part, Vice President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the U.S.-Japan Council’s Annual Conference in Washington, then heads to Ohio where he does several events for Governor Ted Strickland.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
Schwarzenegger was to have been in Sacramento today for private talks, but was still heavily under the weather over the weekend and missed his big No on 23 event at former Secretary of State George Shultz’s home.
Schwarzenegger was to have attended the Border Governors Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico — hosted by his friend, new Mexico Governor Bill Richardson — but canceled yesterday due to the budget impasse.
Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado is attending in Schwarzenegger’s stead.
Friday broke the all-time record for the longest that the state Legislature has gone without passing a budget.
Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman blames Schwarzenegger for the delay, saying that he should not have taken a large business delegation on his trade mission to Asia. And that he should have, you know, acted really tough.
Whitman doesn’t understand what’s going on.
The Legislature has shown no particular interest in adopting a budget in any timely manner. Click on my latest Huffington Post feature below to see why.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** EXPENDABLE ARNOLD: WHAT’S AHEAD FOR SCHWARZENEGGER?Arnold Schwarzenegger was back from his last big trip to Asia as governor of California and sounded pretty sick. But he powered through a Friday appearance giving out the annual awards of his Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. The overall numbers for the program were pretty impressive, with big increases in fitness activity levels for California schoolkids.
Still, another set of new numbers may have more bearing on Schwarzenegger’s future. Then there’s the usual state budget stalemate and the fights over the fate of the landmark climate change program Schwarzenegger helped enact and whether Jerry Brown or billionaire Republican Meg Whitman — now the biggest spending candidate in American history — will succeed him as governor.
The Expendables went over $100 million in domestic box office this weekend. The Expendables is the old school action flick, directed by and starring Schwarzenegger’s old rival-turned-pal Sylvester Stallone, which has become a late summer hit movie. Part of that is due to Schwarzenegger. He has only a cameo role in the picture — one scene which he filmed in a few hours last year — but it was heavily publicized in trailers, advertising, and PR as a sort of summit meeting of classic action stars. And Schwarzenegger appeared with his friend Stallone in LA and Vegas to help promote the movie. …From my September 18th column.
** BILL CLINTON HEARTS JERRY BROWN! (AND OTHER TALES OF INTRIGUE)For a debacle, this is certainly working out very nicely for Jerry Brown.
I’m referring to his widely publicized joke on Sunday, in which he seemed to many to have wrecked his chances for backing from former President Bill Clinton, whose long-ago false attack (based on a very inaccurate CNN report) on Brown is featured in billionaire Meg Whitman’s thoroughly debunked anti-Brown TV ad.
Clinton on Tuesday issued a very snappy endorsement of Jerry Brown. In the process, he denounced Whitman’s latest TV attack ad against Brown.
With Clinton’s endorsement in hand, less than 48 hours after Brown told a rather mild joke in Los Angeles questioning the consistency of Clinton’s veracity, Brown thanked his former presidential campaign rival for his backing and pivoted to the launch of two new 15-second attack ads against Whitman which brand her a liar.
Was Brown’s Sunday joke, for which he apologized Monday, a gaffe or a gambit?
The effect of Brown’s action was to place more attention on Whitman’s TV ad and on the question of whether or not Clinton, who was with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday, would endorse him. My reporting told me all along that the former president — who had a very nasty campaign against Brown for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992 — would nonetheless back his former rival and denounce Whitman’s TV ad. He just, well, hadn’t gotten around to it yet. …From my September 16th feature.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
This is up about $41 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
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